spect among his fellows in
the combination clothes we provided, "until his baggage arrives." He is
to be paid no money, and allowed to "shlape" if a spell unhappily
arrives. When the season is over, Bart agrees to see him on board ship
with a prepaid passage straight to Kathy, and whatever else is his due
sent to her! Meanwhile he promised to "fit the leddy with the tastiest
garden off the old sod!"

So here we are!

This chronicle should have a penny-dreadful title, "Their Midnight
Adventure, or How it Rained a Rose Gardener!" Tell me about the ferns
next time; we have only moved the glossy Christmas and evergreen-crested
wood ferns as yet, being sure of these.

How about our fencing? Ask Evan. You remember that we have a
picket-fence toward the road, but on three sides the boundary is only a
tumble-down stone wall in which bird cherries have here and there found
footing. We have a chance to sell the stones, and Bart is thinking of
it, as it will be too costly to rebuild on a good foundation. The old
wall was merely a rough-laid pile.

IX

FERNS, FENCES, AND WHITE BIRCHES

(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose)

_Hemlock Hills, July 3._ For nearly a week we have been sauntering
through this most entrancing hill country, practically a pedestrian
trip, except that the feet that have taken the steps have been shod with
steel instead of leather. Your last chronicle has followed me, and was
read in a region so pervaded by ferns that your questions concerning
their transplanting would have answered themselves if you could have
only perched on the rock beside me. There is a fern-lined ravine below,
a fern-bordered road in front; and above a log cottage, set in a
clearing in the hemlocks which has for its boundaries the tumble-down
fence piled by the settlers a century or two ago, its crevices now
filled by leaf-mould, has become at once a natural fernery and a
barrier. Why do you not use your old wall in a like manner? Of course
your stones may be too closely piled and lack the time-gathered
leaf-mould, but a little discretion in removing or tipping a stone here
and there, and a crowbar for making pockets, would work wonders. You
might even exchange the surplus rocks for leaf-mould, load by load; at
any rate large quantities of fern soil must be obtainable for the
carting at the reservoir woods.

Imagine the effect, if you please, of that irregular line of rocks
swathed in vines and sheltering great clumps of f