xcept the
sage, and that it was a heavy bit of land for the clumsy hoe to pick
at. The only puzzle is, what she proposes to do with so long a row of
sage. Yet there may be a large family with a downfall of measles yet
ahead, and she does not mean to be caught without sage-tea.

Along this road every one of the old farmhouses has at least one tall
bush of white roses by the door,--a most lovely sight, with buds and
blossoms, and unvexed green leaves. I wish that I knew the history of
them, and whence the first bush was brought. Perhaps from England
itself, like a red rose that I know in Kittery, and the new shoots
from the root were given to one neighbor after another all through the
district. The bushes are slender, but they grow tall without climbing
against the wall, and sway to and fro in the wind with a grace of
youth and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How many lovers must have
picked them on Sunday evenings, in all the bygone years, and carried
them along the roads or by the pasture footpaths, hiding them clumsily
under their Sunday coats if they caught sight of any one coming. Here,
too, where the sea wind nips many a young life before its prime, how
often the white roses have been put into paler hands, and withered
there!

In spite of the serene and placid look of the old houses, one who has
always known them cannot help thinking of the sorrows of these farms
and their almost undiverted toil. Near the little gardener's plot, we
turned from the main road and drove through lately cleared woodland up
to an old farmhouse, high on a ledgy hill, whence there is a fine view
of the country seaward and mountainward. There were few of the once
large household left there: only the old farmer, who was crippled by
war wounds, active, cheerful man that he was once, and two young
orphan children. There has been much hard work spent on the place.
Every generation has toiled from youth to age without being able to
make much beyond a living. The dollars that can be saved are but few,
and sickness and death have often brought their bitter cost. The
mistress of the farm was helpless for many years; through all the
summers and winters she sat in her pillowed rocking-chair in the plain
room. She could watch the seldom-visited lane, and beyond it, a little
way across the fields, were the woods; besides these, only the clouds
in the sky. She could not lift her food to her mouth; she could not be
her husband's working partner. She n