rds were
feeding today would have been just as fine had there been no catbird
to eat them or human eye to admire them. Had there been no human ear
to delight, the song of the woodthrush would have been just as sweet.
The choke-cherries crimsoning in the summer sun, the clusters of the
nuts swelling among the leaves of the hickory will strive to attain
perfection, whether or no there are human hands to gather them. They
live in beauty, simplicity and serenity, all-sufficient in themselves
to achieve their ends.

* * * * *

Let me live by the old road among the flowers and the trees, the same
old road year after year, yet new with the light of each morning.
Shirking not my share of the world's work, let me gather comfort from
the cool grasses and the restful shade of the old road, hope and
courage from the ever-recurring miracle of the morning and the
springtime, inspiration to strive nobly toward a high ideal of
perfection. They are talking of improving the old road. They will
build pavements on either side, and a trim park in the middle, where
strange shrubs from other states will fight for life with the tall,
rank weeds which always tag the heels of civilization. Then let me
live farther out,--always just beyond the last lamp on the outbound
road, like Omar Khayyam in his strip of herbage, where there are no
improvements, no conventionalities, where life is as large as the
world and where the sweet sanities and intimacies of nature are as
fresh and abundant as the dew of the morning. Rather than the
pavements, let me see the holes of the tiger-beetles in the dirt of
the road, the funnels of the spiders leading down to the roots of the
grass and their cobwebs spread like ladies' veils, each holding dozens
of round raindrops from the morning shower, as a veil might hold a
handful of gleaming jewels. Let me still take note of the coming of
the months by the new flower faces which greet me, each taking
their proper place in the pageant of the year. Old memories of friends
and faces, old joys and hopes and loves flash and fade among the
shrubs and the flowers--here we found the orchis, there we gathered
the gentians, under this oak the friend now sleeping spoke simply of
his faith and hope in a future, sweeter summer, when budding thoughts
and aspirations should blossom into fadeless beauty and highest ideals
be attained. Let me watch the same birds building the same shapely
homes in the ol