e his confidence highly.
He wrote:

No man can get a hold on the complex problems of this day and
especially the next, who doesn't go at them with at least some
sunburn on his neck and a few horny spots on his hands. Put Pete at
it, you and Sam. Your description of Sam's habitation and vocation
in letter to Mabel made me feel twenty-five again. I never had the
real thing; but Peter shall. Ease him along. If he kicks over the
traces let me know. When are you coming North again? Soon, I hope,

Your aged admirer,
PETER VANDYNE, Sr.

_P.S._--Thought I'd better say that Dr. Herbrick doesn't like
Peter's weight--one sixteen. You understand.

I wonder what the paternal Keats was like. I don't remember, and I must
look him up to see. It's funny how sturdy-oak fathers can have
ferny-mimosa sons. Mothers can stand producing poets, but it is hard on
fathers. I felt that I must help out Judge Vandyne, and with that
resolve I headed Redwheels out along Providence Road.

As I had told mother, the sobs and tears of the April day had been
wilfully misleading demonstrations, for by ten o'clock the whole face of
nature wore a sun-sweetened smile that was positively entrancing. The
young April world seemed to spring dripping from a bath that glistened
all over with crystal water gems. Winter is staid and dignified and
grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is
glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and
yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it
nestle there to suck its pink apple-blow thumb, and curl up its young
sprout toes sheltered away from the cold that sets it back and the sun
that forces it to break bud. Sometimes it stays with you a day and
sometimes a week and a day, but you can't hold it back. You can just be
thankful that you had it. I was.

But if the five miles of Providence Road had been a delight, as
Redwheels and I ran along it, the dirt lane that led to The Briers was
an intoxicating joy. The wet earth, the drenched cedars, the oak buds,
the spongy moss, the reddening blackberry-bushes, and the sprouting
grain, all mingled in a queer creation odor that went right through the
pores of my skin into my vitals and made me feel as strong as an ox, or
rather, as Sam's new mule. I caught a glimpse of that mule through a
vista befo