h of the great city and
the routine of civilized work--just-over-the-fence retreats, to which
you can run off without much preparation, and from which you can come
back again before your little world discovers your absence. That was
the charm of Hopkinson Smith's sketch, "A Day at Laguerre's"; and an
English writer who calls himself "A Son of the Marshes" has written a
delightful book of interviews with birds and other wild things, which
bears the attractive title, "Within an Hour of London Town." But I
would make it a condition of the prize that the name of the
hiding-place should not be published, lest the careless, fad-following
crowd should flock thither and spoil it. Let the precious news be
communicated only by word of mouth, or by letter, as a confidence and
gift of friendship, so that none but the like-minded may strike the
trail to the next-door remnant of Eden.

It was thus that my four friends--Friends in creed as well as in
deed--told to me, one of "the world's people," toiling over my
benumbing examination papers, their secret find of a little river in
South Jersey, less than an hour from Philadelphia, where one could
float in a canoe through mile after mile of unbroken woodland, and camp
at night in a bit of wilderness as wildly fair as when the wigwams of
the Lenni-Lenape were hidden among its pine groves. The Friends said
that they "had a concern" to guide me to their delectable retreat, and
that they hoped the "way would open" for me to come. Canoes and tents
and camp-kit? "That will all be provided; it is well not to be anxious
concerning these sublunary things." Mosquitoes? "Concerning this, also,
thee must learn to put thy trust in Providence; yet there is a happy
interval, as it were, between the fading of the hepatica and the
blooming of the mosquito, when the woods of South Jersey are habitable
for man, and it would be most prudent to choose this season for the
exercise of providential trust regarding mosquitoes." Examination
papers? Duty? "Surely thee must do what thee thinks will do most good,
and follow the inward voice. And if it calls thee to stay with the
examination papers, or if it calls thee to go with us, whichever way,
thee will be resigned to obey." Fortunately, there was no doubt about
the inward voice; it was echoing the robins; it was calling me to go
out like Elijah and dwell under a juniper-tree. I replied to the
Friends in the words of one of their own preachers: "I am resigned t