THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 43 



plannings are necessary, what adjusting of com- 

 plicated relationships, what extra lunches, what 

 .occasional trips out in the fields, what readings 

 and stories to appease mental hunger, what — > 

 alas! what not? Our daughter said, in the 

 presence of visitors, that I was as much a boy 

 as any that played in the garden, and why not 3 

 Young in heart and perfect in health, and 

 abounding in exuberance, why not unlimber and 

 actualize the longing of Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes in his poem, "Would I were a boy 

 again !" 



Bettie has found mates, and what magpies 

 ever chatted more heartily and giggled more 

 constantly, and delightedly. The neighbor- 

 hood is well stocked with children, and so there 

 is a happy round of visits and lunches and 

 dances and parties and rides am. lawn festivals, 

 illuminated by Chinese lanterns and more bril- 

 liantly by boys and girls and women. We or- 

 ganized a crowd of boys eager for a fishing 

 excursion, five miles distant, three grown-ups 

 and seven boys. What a time. I don't won- 

 der that Caesar paused on the banks of the 

 Rubicon; would we undertake it all again? 

 Think of the care and caution, the carryall 

 ride, the boat and lake, baiting hooks, un- 

 tangling lines, stringing fish, climbing trees, 



