do
not hear from me for a time it will be because I have discarded the
pockets in which I carry my fountain pen and my stamps and am wandering
barefoot through the Elysian fields.

Yours for the Simple Life,

CHARLIE SANDS.

As I finished reading the letter aloud, I looked at Aggie in dismay.
"That settles it," I said hopelessly. "She had some such idea before,
and now this young idiot--" I stopped and stared across the table at
Aggie. She was sitting rapt, her eyes fixed on the smouldering wicks of
Mr. Wiggins's candles.

"Barefoot through the Elysian fields!" she said.

II

I am not trying to defend myself. I never had the enthusiasm of the
other two, but I rather liked the idea. And I did restrain them. It was
my suggestion, for instance, that we wear sandals without stockings,
instead of going in our bare feet, which was a good thing, for the first
day out Aggie stepped into a hornet's nest. And I made out the lists.

The idea, of course, is not how much one can carry, but how little. The
"Young Woodsman" told exactly how to manage in the woods if one were
lost there and had nothing in the world but a bootlace and a wire
hairpin.

With the hairpin one could easily make a fair fish-hook--and with a
bootlace or a good hemp cord one could make a rabbit snare.

"So you see," Tish explained, "there's fish and meat with no trouble at
all. And there will be berries and nuts. That's a diet for a king."

I was making a list of the necessaries at the time and under bootlaces
and hairpins I put down "spade."

"What in Heaven's name is the spade for?" Tish demanded.

"You've got to dig bait, haven't you?"

Tish eyed me with disgust.

"Grasshoppers!" she said tersely.

There was really nothing Tish was not prepared for. I should never have
thought of grasshoppers.

"The idea is simply this," observed Tish: "We have surrounded ourselves
with a thousand and one things we do not need and would be better
without--houses, foolish clothing, electric light, idiotic
servants--Hannah, get away from that door!--rich foods, furniture and
crowds of people. We've developed and cared for our bodies instead of
our souls. What we want is to get out into the woods and think; to
forget those pampered bodies of ours and to let our souls grow and
assert themselves."

We decided finally to take a blanket apiece, rolled on our shoulders,
and Tish and I each took a strong knife. Aggie, instead of the knife,