ir camp, where, I remember, they were drying deer
meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that the
smoky smell of the Indians, tanned buckskin, parched wild rice, and the
like, were odours that carried far and could not be mistaken.

My father had a big, hooked nose with long, narrow nostrils, I suppose
that this has really nothing to do with the matter, although I have
come, after these many years, to look with a curious interest upon
people's noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are.
My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses go--but I think
I inherited from my father something of the power of enjoyment he had
from that sense, though I can never hope to become the accomplished
smeller he was.

I am moved to begin this chronicle because of my joy this morning
early--a May morning!--just after sunrise, when the shadows lay long
and blue to the west and the dew was still on the grass, and I walked in
the pleasant spaces of my garden. It was so still...so still...that
birds afar off could be heard singing, and once through the crystal air
came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the
silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the
lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries.
Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well knew the
way of the wind, for if I stood to the north of them the odour was less
rich and free than to the south, and I thought I might pose as a prophet
of wind and weather upon the basis of this easy magic, and predict that
the breezes of the day would be from the north--as, indeed, they later
appeared to be.

I went from clump to clump of the lilacs testing and comparing them with
great joy and satisfaction. They vary noticeably in odour; the white
varieties being the most delicate, while those tending to deep purple
are the richest. Some of the newer double varieties seem less
fragrant--and I have tested them now many times--than the old-fashioned
single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our
smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of selection
for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist has cheated us of our
rightful heritage of fragrance. I have a mind some time to practise the
art of burbankry or other kind of wizardy upon the old lilac stock and
select for odour alone, securing ravishing original varieties--i