f the Garden. There she stands, on the broad step beside the
bed where the Lilies of the Valley grew, leaning firmly upon her one
crutch, looking out across her garden to each loved group of her
flower-friends--smiling out upon them as she did each day through fifty
years--turning at last into the house and taking with her, in her
heart, the glory of the Hollyhocks against the brick wall, the perfume
of the Narcissus in the border, the wing-song of the humming-bird
among, the Honey-suckle, and the warmth of the glad June sunshine.

The River

The river wasn't a big river as I look back at it now, yet it was wide
and wandering and deep, and flowed quietly along through a wonderful
Middle West valley, dividing the Little Old Town geographically and
socially. Its shores furnished such a boy playground as never was known
anywhere else in all the world--for it was a gentle river, a kindly
playfellow, an understanding friend; and it seemed fairly to thrill in
responsive glee when I plunged, naked and untamed, beneath the eddying
waters of the swimming-hole under the overhanging wild-plum tree.

Its banks, curving in a semi-circle around the village, marked the
borders of the whole wide world. There were other rivers, other
villages, other lands somewhere--all with strange, queer
names--existing only in the geographies to worry little children. The
real world, and all the really, truly folks and things, were along the
far-stretching banks of this our river. Down by the flats, where the
tiny creek widened to a miniature swamp and emptied its placid waters
into the main stream, the red-wing blackbirds sounded their strange cry
among the cat-tails and the bull-rushes; the frogs croaked in ceaseless
and reverberant chorus; the catfish were ever hungry after dark, and
the night was broken by the glare of torches along the little bridge or
in a group of boats where fisher-lads kept close watch upon their
corks. Far below The Dam, where the changeful current had left a wide
sand-bar and a great tree-trunk stretched its fallen length across from
the shore to the water's edge, the mud-turtles basked in the sun-shine,
and, at the approach of Boyhood, glided or splashed to the safety of
the water.

The banks of the river were a deep and silent jungle wherein all manner
of wild beasts and birds were hunted; its bosom was the vasty deep out
upon which our cherished argosies were sent. And how often their prows
were unexpectedly