ENJOYING THE INFLUENZA 



IT is very pleasant to be put to bed with the 

 Spanish influenza, especially when you don't 

 have the Spanish influenza. Waking with cer- 

 tain indications of a cold, the autocrat of my des- 

 tinies put me back to bed in the west room, where 

 the bed is close to a window, and sent for a doctor. 

 The doctor, however, was ten hours in coming, poor 

 man, and after I had given up as useless the attempt 

 to persuade myself that my head ached, or my back 

 was lame, or my bones were assertive, I watched an 

 opportunity to make a dash for my pipe and tobacco, 

 two extra pillows and a bathrobe, and then propped 

 myself up to enjoy a long day with my mountain. 

 (Naturally I forgot the matches, and had to get up 

 again.) 



Sitting in bed, I could see the first great shoulder 

 of my mountain leaping up fifteen hundred feet 

 almost from the dooryard — or, rather, I could see it 

 begin the leap, for everything above the thousand- 

 foot level was wrapped in cloud. Yet it was coming 

 on to be a fair October day, it was "burning off," 

 as they say by the shore, though the expression is 

 seldom heard inland. The sun was already striking 

 rather hazily across the eastern plain and warming 

 the gold and green and russet and maroon tapestry 

 of the forest that climbs the mountain from my back- 

 door yard to the peak, save where a belt of naked 



