OUR COUNTRY LIFE 



descend upon us, where do we fly for respite or relief? 

 When the pie-crust is heavy and the biscuits are burnt, 

 is there any place nearer than Europe which will bring 

 us peace? Certainly, there is always the next-best 

 place — the garden. When the children are fractious 

 and the opinion of the head of the house differs from 

 ours, where do we retire to think it all over but to the 

 garden? Even in real sorrow it offers its soothing 

 balm, and for irritation it's a sure cure. Is this be- 

 cause, as Burroughs says: 



We are rooted to the air through our lungs and to the soil through 

 our stomachs. We are walking trees and floating plants. The 

 trembling gold of the pond lily's heart, and its petals like carved 

 snow, are no more a transformation of a little black muck and ooze 

 by the chemistry of the sunbeam than our bodies and minds, too, 

 are a transformation of the soil underfoot. This story of the soil 

 appeals to the imagination. To have a bit of earth to plant, to hoe, 

 to delve in, is a rare privilege. 



When the days dance merrily down the vista of time, 

 and the months change swiftly into seasons, and the 

 seasons into years, then one may be sure that he has 

 really entered upon that delectable period known as 

 middle age. Now is he or she, and especially she, free 



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