even of hunger, our composition will not lack point.

I might run on in this way another sheet, but I will stop. I have
been firing at you in the dark,--a boy or a girl at hand is worth
several in the bush, off there in Fulton,--but if any of my words
tingle in your ears and set you to thinking, why you have your
teacher to thank for it.

Very truly yours,
John Burroughs.


La Manda Park, Cal., February 24, 1911

My Dear Young Friends,--

A hint has come to me here in southern California, where I have
been spending the winter, that you are planning to celebrate my
birthday--my seventy-fourth this time, and would like a word from
me. Let me begin by saying that I hope that each one of you will
at least reach my age, and be able to spend a winter, or several of
them, in southern California, and get as much pleasure out of it
as I have. It is a beautiful land, with its leagues of orange
groves, its stately plains, its park-like expanses, its bright,
clean cities, its picturesque hamlets, and country homes, and all
looked down upon by the high, deeply sculptured mountains and
snow-capped peaks.

Let me hope also that when you have reached my age you will be as
well and as young as I am. I am still a boy at heart, and enjoy