cows of the Douglas (tender and
true) may eat early clover.

But Ashland is there today in all the beauty and loveliness that Henry
Clay knew when he wrote to Benton: "I love old Ashland, and all these
acres with their trees and flowers and growing grain lure me in a way
that ambition never can. No, I remain at Ashland."

The rambling old house is embowered in climbing vines and clambering
rosebushes and is set thick about with cedars, so that you can scarcely
see the chimney-tops above the mass of green. A lane running through
locust-trees planted by Henry Clay's own hands leads you to the
hospitable, wide-open door, where a colored man, whose black face is set
in a frame of wool, smiles a welcome. He relieves you of your baggage and
leads the way to your room.

The summer breeze blows lazily in through the open window, and the only
sound of life and activity about seems to center in two noisy robins which
are making a nest in the eaves, right within reach of your hand. The
colored man apologizes for them, anathematizes them mildly, and proposes
to drive them away, but you restrain him. After the man has gone you
bethink you that the suggestion of driving the birds away was only the
white lie of society (for even black folks tell white lies), and the old
man probably had no more intent of driving the birds away than of going
himself.

On the dresser is a pitcher of freshly clipped roses, the morning dew
still upon them, and you only cease to admire as you espy your mail that
lies there awaiting your hand. News from home and loved ones greets you
before these new-found friends do! You have not seen the good folks who
live here, only the old colored man who pretended that he was going to
kill cock-robin, and didn't. The hospitality is not gushing or
effusive--the place is yours, that's all, and you lean out of the window
and look down at the flowerbeds, and wonder at the silence and the quiet
and peace, and feel sorry for the folks who live in Cincinnati and
Chicago. The soughing of the wind through the pines comes to you like the
murmur of the sea, and breaking in on the stillness you hear the sharp
sound of an ax--some Gladstone chopping, miles and miles away.

Your dreams are broken by a gentle tap at the door and your host has come
to call on you. You know him at once, even though you have never before
met, for men who think alike and feel alike do not have to "get
acquainted." Heart speaks to heart.

He only