The Greatest Sporting Goods 
Store in the World 
Madison Avenue and 45th Street 
Today’s 
Covered 
Wagon 
Call of the prairies and foothills 
—the nomad urge of Forty-Niners, 
brought down to date. 
Tents for every camper, sleeping 
bags and air mattresses, cots and 
camp chairs, cook kits and camp 
stoves, axes and buckets. 
This is the trading post for the 
covered wagon of to-day, even to 
condensed camp foods — and the 
world’s best collection of men’s and 
women’s camp and tourist clothes. 
Write for New Camping 
C-A-T-A-L-O-G-U-E 
Abercrombie 
& Fitch Co* 
EZRA H. FITCH, President 
Madison Avenue and 45th Street 
New York 
“Where the Blazed Trad 
Crosses the Boulevard 
“Here, Rusty—here, Rusty!” 
Now they were trudging up a long, 
shaded slope where young firs grow 
luxuriantly, and pheasants, golden, 
amorous with the thrill of untroubled 
countryside, sent forth winged music, 
tremulous with beauty. 
Alone, I penned a letter to Mother. 
It seemed the most important, the most 
sacred thing a man could do, in that 
environment: . 
“Dear Mother: 
“Your boys — your two boys — have 
found Eden, or, at the very least, a 
virgin Paradise of Nature untamed. It 
is very restful and beautiful here—all 
that we had expected and more. 
“Ju&t now, Sonnyboy is off in the 
woods with a companionable dog. I can 
hear their shouts and their barks. Son¬ 
nyboy will remember this expedition 
until his dying day—and it pleases me 
to think so. 
“Perhaps you will never know the 
personal conflict I have had with MY¬ 
SELF, since these ‘Adventures’ began 
—the unguarded moment when I re¬ 
verted to old moods and ways when 
petulant words mounted to my lips 
when things garrulous and cross and 
intolerant and unnecessary, were al¬ 
most said. I have learned that fathers 
can become sinfully selfish. I am see¬ 
ing myself as I used to be, in my re¬ 
lationship with our son. 
“Realizing, as I do, at this moment 
and under these conditions, the power 
and the glory of little kindnesses, little 
fragments of love and consideration 
KIND words—I am all the more im¬ 
pressed by the hurt there must be in 
the OTHER WAY. My golf was more 
important to me than my boy: I gave 
more love to my trout tackle than to 
my son: I was less concerned over Son¬ 
nyboy than a new fly. I was uncon¬ 
sciously selfish and never quite realized 
it—for it had come on so gradually. 
“Last night—after my second pipe of 
tobacco—the little fellow edged up to 
me in the lamplight and stood for a full 
five minutes before venturing to speak 
what was in his mind. At last he said. 
‘Father—would you very much mind if 
you didn’t smoke another pipe. Mother 
said to look out for you and that the 
doctor said too much tobacco wasn’t 
good. And this one will make SEVEN 
pipefulls, all in ONE DAY ! Can t you 
just make believe it’s MOTHER asking 
you—and not ME, at all—and then you 
won’t be angry?’ 
“I gave him the pipe. 
“ ‘Son,’ I responded, ‘you are per¬ 
fectly right. I AM smoking too much. 
And Mother wants—I want—you to be 
a little doctor while we are up here. 
Take the old pipe—when you think it’s 
O. K. for me to have a whiff—let me 
have it. How’s that?’ 
“I think tears welled up into his 
eyes. But an hour later—after I had 
told him to sneak away to his cot, and 
I would sit on the porch a while, before 
retiring—he came pattering, pattering 
down the stairs, in his bare feet. Out 
on the porch he tip-toed—and, with 
never a word, he handed me the pipe, 
filled with tobacco and a match. 
“ ‘I know,’ he murmured, ‘how much 
you love it—-and—and—maybe a last 
one, before bed, won’t make any differ¬ 
ence. I’m sure Mother wouldn’t mind.’ 
“It ‘busted me all up.’ This new 
experience is making a gross sentimen¬ 
talist out of me. I grabbed at his pa¬ 
jamas as he was running away, and 
squeezed him until he gasped. There 
was so much affection in the hug that 
he must have sensed the tremendous 
earnestness of it. You know that song 
he always liked—what was it?—the re¬ 
frain runs: 
“‘Little Sweetheart, don’t be sorry, 
never mind; 
Little Sweetheart — I’ll be always 
good and kind—’ 
“You used to sing him to sleep by it 
when he was a little hiker and he makes 
you hum it, at the piano, even now. 
Well, down from the small room above, 
I could catch the faint echo of the same 
melody. And then it was hushed—and 
no more. He had sung himself to sleep 
—happily—content. 
“Mother—you did a wonderful thing 
when you spoke to me that night, and 
started Sonnyboy and his grouchy old 
Dad off together on the long, long trail 
of Better Understanding. I can’t make 
out how I did WITHOUT the youngster 
all these years—there’s spiritual reve¬ 
lation in it. I fancy I read in Sonny- 
boy’s face, occasionally, an expression 
of mingled doubt and apprehension. He 
can’t quite believe this comradeship is 
all true—that it’s not a dream. And 
he is so eager to have it LAST—to last 
ALWAYS and forever. 
“Late this afternoon we go for our 
first trout. They tell me the mountain 
streams teem with them, and a lovable 
old chap—a neighbor—helps to make 
the trip one of continuous education 
and joy. If Sonnyboy ever grows up 
to love trout fishing as I do, he will 
have the RIGHT start. And there is 
the making of a true sportsman in him, 
never fear. 
“Your ‘Little Doctor’ is true to his 
trust. I am feeling a thousand per 
cent, better. When his arms were 
around me last night, out there in the 
silence of the summer night, they were 
YOUR arms, dear. I am learning, too, 
that the finer things, the tender, sym¬ 
pathetic understanding things in the 
boy—are from you. Oh, I am so glad 
you gave him back to me—gave ME 
back to HIM.” 
The next morning Mister Chip took 
my precious letter down into the valley 
Page 450 
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