A MOMENTOUS EXPEDITION


By the time Christmas week began we all had agreed to do without
candy, toys, and knick-knacks, and to buy books that would tell us
how to live in the country. One happy evening we had an early supper
and all went to a well-known agricultural store and publishing-house
on Broadway, each child almost awed by the fact that I had fifteen
dollars in my pocket which should be spent that very night in the
purchase of books and papers. To the children the shop seemed like a
place where tickets direct to Eden were obtained, while the colored
pictures of fruits and vegetables could portray the products of Eden
only, so different were they in size and beauty from the specimens
appearing in our market stalls. Stuffed birds and animals were also
on the shelves, and no epicure ever enjoyed the gamy flavor as we
did. But when we came to examine the books, their plates exhibiting
almost every phase of country work and production, we felt like a
long vista leading toward our unknown home was opening before us,
illumined by alluring pictures. To Winnie was given a book on
poultry, and the cuts representing the various birds were even more
to her taste than cuts from the fowls themselves at a Christmas
dinner. The Nimrod instincts of the race were awakened in Merton,
and I soon found that he had set his heart on a book that gave an
account of game, fish, birds, and mammals. It was a natural and
wholesome longing. I myself had felt it keenly when a boy. Such
country sport would bring sturdiness to his limbs and the right kind
of color into his face.

"All right, Merton," I said: "you shall have the book and a breech-