ther, each time more remote. It would not be lonely if segregrated,
doubtless it had ample social facilities within itself! At last I became
desperate. "Ellen," I exclaimed, "just bring in that cheese and burn it.
It comes high, too high. I can not endure it." She opened the top of the
range and, as the cremation was going on, I continued my comments. "Why,
in all my life, I never knew anything like it; wherever I put it--in
pantry, swing cupboard, on the cellar stairs, in a tin box, on top of
the refrigerator--way out on that--" Just then Tom opened the door and
said:

"Miss, your fertilizer's come!"

I have told you of my mistakes, failures, losses, but have you any idea
of my daily delights, my lasting gains?

From invalidism to health, from mental depression to exuberant spirits,
that is the blessed record of two years of amateur farming. What has
done this? Exercise, actual hard work, digging in the dirt. We are made
of dust, and the closer our companionship with Mother Earth in summer
time the longer we shall keep above ground. Then the freedom from
conventional restraints of dress; no necessity for "crimps," no need of
foreign hirsute adornment, no dresses with tight arm holes and trailing
skirts, no high-heeled slippers with pointed toes, but comfort, clear
comfort, indoors and out.

Plenty of rocking chairs, lounges that make one sleepy just to look at
them, open fires in every room, and nothing too fine for the sun to
glorify; butter, eggs, cream, vegetables, poultry--simply perfect, and
the rare, ecstatic privilege of eating onions--onions raw, boiled,
baked, and fried at any hour or all hours. I said comfort; it is luxury!

Dr. Holmes says: "I have seen respectability and amiability grouped over
the air-tight stove, I have seen virtue and intelligence hovering over
the register, but I have never seen true happiness in a family circle
where the faces were not illuminated by the blaze of an open fireplace."
And nature! I could fill pages with glowing descriptions of Days
Outdoors. In my own homely pasture I have found the dainty wild rose,
the little field strawberries so fragrant and spicy, the blue berries
high and low, so desirable for "pie-fodder," and daisies and ferns in
abundance, and, in an adjoining meadow by the brookside, the cardinal
flower and the blue gentian. All these simple pleasures seem better to
me than sitting in heated, crowded rooms listening to interminable
music, or to men or wome