there is always a bit of flower garden. Sometimes this flower garden is
aerial, a bower of roses on the roof sometimes amid the incongruous
surroundings of pig styes or manure heaps. This region is a petunia
land; wherever we go we find a veritable blaze of petunia blossoms, pale
mauve, deepest rose, purple and white massed together without order or
view to effect. In one of the little fortresses--for so these antique
farmhouses may be called--we saw a rustic piazza, pillars and roof of
rude unhewn stone blazing with petunias, no attempt whatever at making
the structure whole, symmetrical or graceful to the eye. It seems as if
these homely though rich farmers, or rather farmers' wives, could not do
without flowers, above the street jutting many aerial gardens, the only
touch of beauty in the work-a-day picture. These interiors would supply
artists with the most captivating subjects. The women, their skins brown
and wrinkled as ripe, shelled walnuts, their head-dress a blue and white
kerchief neatly folded and knotted, the expression of their faces shrewd
and kindly, all contribute to the charm of the scene.

Here as elsewhere the young women and girls affect a little fashion and
finery on Sundays.

We should not know unless we were told that Recloses was one of the
richest villages in these parts. On this Sunday, September 1st, 1901, in
one place a steam thresher was at work, although for the most part folks
seemed to be taking their ease in their holiday garb. Perhaps the
difficulty of procuring the machine accounted for the fact of seeing it
on a Sunday.

One of the farm-yards showed a charming menagerie of poultry and the
prettiest rabbits in the world, all disporting themselves in most
amicable fashion. Here, as elsewhere, when we stopped to admire, the