hment to the dwellers at the sea beach. Nor does it stop
at the seacoast. Often hills a dozen miles inland feel its cool
caress.

The inland, simmering beneath the sun, with the thermometer in the
eighties or worse, sends heavenward great columns of heated air.
To take the place of this the lower strata draws in from the sea,
filled with the coolness and sparkle of the brine and informed
with that mysterious tonic which seems born of wind-tossed salt
water. At such times the east wind brings the breath of life to
our nostrils and sets the jaded motor centres of our nerves
atingle with new power.

Often we dwellers far inland get more than a cool breath of the
sea. Then for a day or two a northeaster comes pelting over the
seaward range of hills, murking the sky with dun clouds, whining
about the eaves and roaring down the chimney, bringing deluges of
rain to the heat-browned pastures and draping them in obscurity of
gray mists, blotting out the roar of cities and the flurry of
modern life, making us believe for a little that we are children
of the farm once more. On sunny days we do not quite get this.
Even in the east wind we smell the soot as well as the sea, but
the genuine northeaster shuts all that out.

On such days the work of the farm ceases. What hay is out is
cocked and capped, snugged down to wait for fair weather. The
weeds in the garden drink and drink again and forget the hoe which
idles in the tool-house corner, and Jotham putters about the barn,
making pretence of indoor work but really luxuriating in idleness.
The place is redolent of the rich, sweet odor of the new hay and
mingled with, this comes that salt tang of the east wind bearing
scent also of all the hills and pastures over which it has blown.
You may if you will tell what gust touched the elders in white
bloom down by the brook, which one lingered in the swamp a moment
to caress the azaleas, and which stopped only long enough to
snatch a kiss from the sweet fern on the pasture hill-top.

It is pleasant then to sit sheltered from the rain just within the
wide barn doors, to hear the twittering of the swallows as they
comfort their young on the beams, and to listen to the wind and to
Jotham. The old-time New England farm hand--he who wore the
smock frock as did his master while they both worked about the
barn and then, the chores done, stood for half an hour in the
dusk, either side of the barn door like caryatids, drinking in the
pleasur