seemed sort of happy, and they took such odd positions that I looked at
them in wonder, hardly knowing my old friends. But they got whiter and
whiter, and we gathered them in when the dusk come and they smelled so
sweet, that I am sure I will have to carry clean thoughts for the rest
of the week.

Mrs. Smith lets me gather the vegetables for dinner. Every morning after
the dishes are washed, I go across the road to the garden and pick the
string-beans and gather summer squash and grub around the nice smelly
earth for potatoes. I get the dirt all under my finger nails, and can
just see the duchess at Gimble's who manicures me, when she takes my
lily-white hands in hers next time. I pick the cucumbers from the
vines, and I never in all my life saw such big tomatoes. Then we come
down the path, Billy carrying a cucumber in each hand, because they
don't break if he drops them, and Paul with a summer squash swinging by
the neck, and me with my apron piled full of things that smell of the
vines.

There is nothing to drink up here, and I don't miss it and I don't bring
cigarettes with me. My friends think it ain't nice to smoke, and I would
not hurt them for worlds. Their friendship and the love they show me is
worth more than all the drinks or smokes in little old New York. Why, I
would give up anything just to see the look in their faces when they
meet me at the station, and I know they really want me to come.

It rained yesterday, not a dull, drizzling rain like we have in the
City, but a happy "I am good for you" rain, that washed old mother
earth's face and left quiet gray shadows on the lake. I never thought I
could think a rain was pretty, but yesterday it was just beautiful as
it came down slantwise on the water. We heard it coming long before it
got to us, sounded just like the patter patter of soft footed things on
a chifon carpet, and way across the lake we could see a blue-gray wall
that come nearer and nearer till it got to us. Then when the rain was
finished, the lake looked like a dull looking glass with every leaf and
tree showing in its face. The birds began to call to one another again,
and the robbins came out on the lawn looking for worms. There is one
saucy robbin who comes toward me and cocks his little head and says, "Am
I not a little dandy? Do I not hold myself as a gentleman should?" Then
he finds a big fat worm and pulls and tugs until he gets him loose and
flies away to his wife and babies becaus