[Illustration: "EVERY TREE IS A PICTURE" (p. 22)]

Tiny rabbits venture out from the tall grasses and look on life with
timid eyes. Bees and butterflies are busy with the day's work. Life
with its beauty and its joy is everywhere abundant. Living things swim
in and upon the brook, insects run and leap among the grasses, winged
creatures are in the shrubs, the trees, the air, active, eager,
beautiful life is everywhere. The heart thrills with the beauty, the
joy, the zest, the abundance of it, expands to a capacity for the
amplitude of it. Human life grows sweeter, richer, more worth while.
There is so much to live for, so much to hope for; this is the meaning
and the glory of the summer.

* * * * *

Farther out, where the old road leaves the woods, the landscape is
like a vast park, more beautiful than many a park which the world
calls famous. From the crest of the ridge the fields roll away in
graceful curves, dotted with comfortable homes and groves and skirted
by heavy timber down in the valley where the sweet water of the river
moves quietly over the white sand. Still responding to the freshening
impulse of the June rains, fields and woods are all a-quiver with
growth. By master magic soil-water and sunshine are being changed into
color and form to delight the eye and food to do the world's work.
Every tree is a picture, each leaf is as fresh and clean as the
rain-washed air of the morning. From the low meadows the perfume of
the hay is brought up by the languid breeze. Amber oat-fields are
ripening in the sun and in the corn-fields there is a sense of the
gathering force of life as the sturdy plants lift themselves higher