e other families spend at
Belleair in a week, or at Palm Beach in a day.

If I am any judge of the signs of happiness, there is plenty of it in
the hearts of those who winter at St. Petersburg. The city park is full
of contented people, most of them middle-aged or old. The women listen
to the band, and the men play checkers under the palmetto-thatched
shelter, or toss horseshoes on the greensward, at the sign of the
Sunshine Pleasure Club--an occupation which is St. Petersburg's
equivalent for Palm Beach's game of tossing chips on the green-topped
tables of a gambling house. And yet--

Is it always pleasant to be virtuous? Is it always delightful to be
where pious people, naive people, people who love simple pastimes, are
enjoying themselves? I am reminded of a talk I had with a negro whose
strong legs turned the pedals of a wheel chair in which my companion and
I rode one day through the Palm Beach jungle trail. It is a wonderful
place, that jungle, with its tangled trunks and vines and its green
foliage swimming in sifted sunlight; with its palms, palmettoes, ferns,
and climbing morning-glories, its banana trees, gnarled rubber banyans,
and wild mangoes--which are like trees growing upside down, digging
their spreading branches into the ground. For a time we forgot the
pedaling negro behind us, but a faint puffing sound on a slight up-grade
reminded us, presently, that our party was not of two, but three. When
the chair was running free again, one of us inquired of the chairman:

"What would you do if you had a million dollars?"

"Well, boss," replied the negro seriously, "Ah knows one thing Ah'd do.
No mattuh how much o' dis worl's goods Ah haid, Ah'd allus get mah
exuhcize."

"That's wise," my companion replied. "What kind of exercise would you
take?"

"Ah ain't nevvuh jest stedied dat out, boss," returned the man. "But it
sho' would be some kind o' exuhcize besides pushin' one o' dese-heah
chaihs."

"When you weren't exercising would you go and have a good time?"

"No, boss."

"Why not?"

"Well, boss, y' see Ah's a 'ligious man, Ah is."

"But can't people who are religious have a good time?"

"Oh," said the negro, "dey might have deh little pleasuhs now an' den,
but dey cain't hev no sich good times like othah folks kin. A man 't 's
a 'ligious man, he cain't hev no sich good times like Mistuh
Wahtuhbe'y's an' dem folks 'at was heah up to laist week. Ah was Mistuh
Wahtuhbe'y's chaih boy. He gimme nin