their proper place in the pageant of the year. Old memories of friends
and faces, old joys and hopes and loves flash and fade among the
shrubs and the flowers--here we found the orchis, there we gathered
the gentians, under this oak the friend now sleeping spoke simply of
his faith and hope in a future, sweeter summer, when budding thoughts
and aspirations should blossom into fadeless beauty and highest ideals
be attained. Let me watch the same birds building the same shapely
homes in the old familiar bushes and listen to the old sweet songs,
changeless through the years. If the big thistle is rooted out, where
shall the lark sparrow build her nest? If the dirt road is paved, how
shall the yellow-hammers have their sand-baths in the evening, while
the half grown rabbits frisk around them? Sweet the hours spent in
living along the old road--let my life be simpler, that I may spend
more time in living and less in getting a living. There are so many
things deemed essential that really are not necessary at all. One hour
of new thought is better than them all. Let the days be long enough
for the zest and joy of work, for the companionship of loved ones and
friends, for a little time loafing along the old road when the day's
work is done. Let me hear the sibilant sounds of the thrashers as they
settle to sleep in the thicket. Give me the fragrance of the milkweed
at evening. Let me see the sunset glow on the trunks of the trees, the
ruby tints lingering on the boulder brought down by the glaciers long
ago; the little bats that weave their way beneath the darkening arches
of the leafy roof, while the fire-flies are lighting their lamps in
the nave of the sylvan sanctuary. When the afterglow has faded and the
blur of night has come, give me the old, childlike faith and assurance
that tomorrow's sun shall rise again, and that by-and-by, in the same
sweet way, there shall break the first bright beams of Earth's Eternal
Easter morning.