3oo IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



winter again, is the poetry as well as the health of 

 self-sustenance. It gives you a fine, independent 

 feeling. It makes you appreciate doubly the blessed 

 welcome of your glowing hearths. It flavors your 

 waiting tea with the sweetness of honest satisfaction 

 and solid accomplishment. It takes you back — 

 that, I think, is at the heart of the secret, if secret 

 there be — to an earlier day when we all lived closer 

 to the land, leaned more heavily on our own efforts, 

 and meant by "home" something more homely, self- 

 centered, and self-sustaining. There are spots in the 

 Berkshires where, I regret to say, it would not be 

 considered quite the thing to cut your own wood, 

 but I rejoice, as I half slide down the steep pasture 

 slope toward the red house by the road, that I no 

 longer live in such a spot. I find the feeding of my 

 fireplaces a splendid and heart-warming adventure. 



