. The clock of the seasons had resumed
its beat.

Hiring a gardener, I bought a hand-book on Horticulture and announced my
intent to make those four fat acres feed my little flock. I was now a
land enthusiast. My feet laid hold upon the earth. I almost took root!

With what secret satisfaction I planned to widen the front porch and
build a two-story bay-window on the north end of the sitting room--an
enterprise of such audacity that I kept it strictly to myself! It meant
the extravagant outlay of nearly two hundred dollars--but above and
beyond that, it involved cutting a hole in the wall and cluttering up
the yard; therefore I thought it best to keep my plot hidden from my
mother till mid-summer gave more leisure to us all.

My notebook of that spring is crowded with descriptions, almost lyrical,
of the glory of sunsets and the beauty of bird-song and budding
trees--even the loud-voiced, cheerful democracy of the village was
grateful to me.

"Yesterday I was deep in the tumult of Chicago," runs the entry,
"to-day, I am hoeing in my sun-lit garden, hearing the mourning-dove coo
and the cat-birds cry. Last night as the sun went down the hill-tops to
the west became vividly purple with a subtle illusive deep-crimson glow
beneath, while the sky above their tops, a saffron dome rose almost to
the zenith. These mystical things are here joined: The trill of
black-birds near at hand, the cackle of barn-yard fowls, the sound of
hammers, a plowman talking to his team, the pungent smoke of burning
leaves, the cool, sweet, spring wind and the glowing down-pouring
sunshine--all marvelous and satisfying to me and mine. _This is home!_"

On the twelfth of April, however, a most dramatic reversal to winter
took place. "The day remained beautifully springlike till about two
o'clock when a gray haze came rushing downward from the north-west. Big
black clouds developed with portentous rapidity. Thunder arose, and an
icy wind, furious and swift as a tornado roared among the trees. The
rain, chilled almost into hail, drummed on the shingles. The birds fell
silent, the hens scurried to shelter. In ten minutes the cutting blast
died out. A dead calm succeeded. Then out burst the sun, flooding the
land with laughter! The black-birds resumed their piping, the fowls
ventured forth, and the whole valley again lay beaming and blossoming
under a perfect sky."

The following night I was in the city watching a noble performance of
"Tristan an