American Gardening 



XLbc Bmcrican ©arOcn— popular (3ar&ening 



yol. XIII 



AUGUST, 1892 



No. 8 



THE REVELATION OF A BIT OF ROAD. 



A TRANSIENT AWAKENING. 



'ONE of the numerous phenomena of 

 mutation are more surprising than 

 the striking contrasts in the chang- 

 ing moods of one's own mind. It 

 is indeed a strange omniscience 

 which decrees that the same external 

 conditions shall yield us at one 

 time gloom or grief, at another time 

 blessing and happiness. The same 

 sun on the same water or fields, will one day wear a 

 smile and another day cast a look of deepest sadness, 

 But let us chronicle one of the fortunate experiences. 

 There is a bit of road ,^ 

 that leads from the rail- ""Sii*. 

 way-station, for a dis- 

 tance of some two miles, 

 up to the house where I 

 now stop for awhile — 

 t h e mundane fortress 

 which is crowned with 

 the name of home. 

 This road is not strik- 

 ingly broad nor of pre- 

 tentious appearance, 

 but it sets off determin- 

 edly for the hills, climbs 

 a ridge and winds along 

 upward and northward. 

 It is a good, promising 

 road where it passes my 



house, and, though I have not explored it for many miles 

 beyond, I should not wonder if it would eventually lead 

 as near to the North Pole as one could travel by land on 

 this continent, before it "ends in a squirrel's track and 

 runs up a tree." 



It happened that I was walking homeward the other 

 day with a heart unusually light, and I soon noted that 

 the familiar old road had suddenly become voiceful, con- 



This road skts off deter.winedly for 



fiding and intimate. Memory had put on her winged 

 sandals and ran on before to awaken every common- 

 place object, make it show its best face, and tell its 

 choicest story. It was not merely that the sun shone 

 good-naturedly, and that the greening sod exhaled its 

 grateful scent — that birds were waging a pretty contest 

 of sweet sounds, an-d that the cows looked happy and 

 sanguine in the fresh pastures. There were, indeed, 

 knowing looks in the blossoms by the way, as if the 

 violets and dandelions, occasional blood-root and hepat- 

 ica, knew the secret of the day but would not give me 

 the countersign. No, it was merely, as I believe, that 

 the dust-clouds of contend- 

 ing, earthy strife had sep- 

 arated temporarily and 

 allowed to fall through the 

 rift a beam of the light that 

 never was on land or sea. 

 It was one of the occasional 

 harvest-days of life when 

 we come into our heritage 

 and gather in the crop of 

 experience. 



All at once everything 

 was significant. The world 

 was fashioned just as it 

 should be, and not a blade 

 of grass ought to be 

 changed, not a stone should 

 be turned. The brook, 

 coming down the rocky gorge, and fringing the swale of 

 the meadow, was as charming a stream as ever met the 

 eye of Chaucer. It was worthy to listen to the footfall 

 of Izaak Walton ; it was even as potent of mythologic 

 fancy, as suggestive of glistening visions of fleeing love- 

 liness, as if it were flowing to the blue ^gean instead of 

 to the Sound. As for the plying vessels, whose white 

 pinions kept low flight against the dark blue of Long 



