The Rambles of an Idler 



I am concerned with those who followed. They 

 were fine days, I fancy, when folk lived just a 

 little nearer Nature. The cool butter and the 

 sweet milk that came from the spring-house, 

 where never a breath of summer entered, were 

 better, I am sure, than the frozen fat and for- 

 maldehyded milk of to-day. Artificiality has 

 its place, and ice in summer is a blessing; but 

 there is no need to pity those who had a spring- 

 house near the kitchen. Food then was whole- 

 some, and no question concerning it could arise. 

 Looking over an old letter, I find a descrip- 

 tion of a home-coming dinner. Served now, 

 some people might rebel. No fancy foreign 

 dishes, nor even ice-cream ; but there was whole- 

 some beef, fresh-killed chicken, home-grown 

 vegetables with all the sweetness Nature had 

 packed into them, sugar-preserved fruit and 

 syllabub; and what needed to be cool was 

 brought straight from the spring-house with 

 the coolness of a bubbling spring and an un- 

 tainted atmosphere about it. How could our 

 forbears have done without modern conven- 

 iences? is often asked. Well, they did, but that 

 which fore-ran what we now have met every real 

 need. Our grandfathers never went hungry, 



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