LIVING SOUVENIRS OF TRAVEL. 



69 



glossy star-shaped leaves and curious corky bark. 

 No, nor the little pond at the foot of the forest- 

 covered hills, where the good husband waded to his 

 boot-tops after the roots of pond-lilies. Not long 

 since, a dear friend who has accompanied us on 

 several of our pleasure-trips, made us one of her 

 rare visits. We were in the yard, walking and talk- 

 ing, looking at this and at that, when she said to 

 me, as a thought seemed suddenly to strike her : 



" Cousin, this morning one of you related an in- 

 cident of our first trip together that I had entirely 

 forgotten ; and this afternoon you described one of 

 our camping-places in Arkansas that, for the life of 

 me, I couldn't remember. You don't know how 

 mortified I was at what I thought my defective 

 memory ; but now I understand how it is that you 

 forget so little. Here in your yard I see the alder 

 that was dug that picnic day in Kansas, the buckeye 

 and hepatica brought from Camp Danger, and the 

 leather-wood from Eureka — all living memorials of 

 the places we have visited together. Everywhere 

 you have been you have found something new and 



brought it home with you. Next time I shall follow 

 your example and, in the bloom of my living souve- 

 nirs, live the bright past all over again." 



It is becoming more and more the custom for 

 town and city people to take an annual vacation. 

 I wish it was not confined to them alone, but that 

 the thousands of hard-worked farmers and farmers' 

 wives would get away from their familiar fields for 

 a few days, even if their journey were but to the 

 next township. 



In one sense, we country folk, as a class, need 

 this sort of change even more than city workers. 

 The merchant and the lawyer find, amid the inci' 

 dents of their daily avocations, much variety, and 

 their minds are kept alert and active in the strife 

 for wealth or fame. But in the tasks of the hus- 

 bandman there is but little such relief ; and his 

 need for change of scene is so much the more im- 

 perative. It is true that "all work and no play 

 makes Jack a dull boy," and particularly true if 

 Jack's work itself is mainly dull and humdrum. 



Wanderer. 



Sugar-Maples on the Hillside at Clinton, N. Y. (See page 67.) 



