e
will-o'-the-wisp of hope lures us over swamp and swale, through pit
and pasture, toward the smooth haven of the putting green; some
subtle, mysterious power every now and then coordinates our muscles
and lets us achieve perfection for a single stroke, whereafter we
tingle with remembrance and thrill with anticipation. Golf is the
quest of the unattainable, it is a manifestation of the Divine Unrest,
it spreads before us the soft green pathway down which we follow the
Gleam. That is why you and I shall be giving it up forever on our
eightieth birthday.

[Illustration]

_"Grape-Vine" Erudition_

You may recall that Mr. Ezra Barkley acquired a great reputation for
learning by imparting to the spinsters of Old Chester such astonishing
facts as the approximate number of roe contained in a shad. His
sister-in-law, in her ignorance, supposed there were only two hundred!
Ezra also knew who first kept bees, and many other important things,
usually of a statistical nature. I cannot recall that Mrs. Deland has
told us where Ezra acquired his erudition, and I used at one time to
wonder. But now I know. He read the "grape-vine" in the first editions
of our daily papers.

Perhaps you don't know what "grape-vine" is? I rejoice in my ability
to tell you. It is the name given by newspaper men to the jokes and
squibs and bits of information clipped by the busy exchange reader,
and put into type, making short paragraphs of varying lengths, which
are dropped in at the bottom of a column to fill up the vacant space
when the need arises. This need most often arises in preparing the
first edition, the one which catches the early trains for the
country. By the time the city edition goes to press sufficient news
of battles, carnage, and sudden death, of politics and stock
exchanges, has been prepared to fill every inch of available space.
The city reader, therefore, sees little of this "grape-vine." Thus we
have a new argument for country life.

I am now a resident of the country, one hundred and fifty miles
removed from New York and as far from Boston; and I am by way of
becoming nearly as erudite as Ezra Barkley. I am, indeed, almost
bewildered with the mass of information I am acquiring. This morning I
read a column about the European war, all of which I have now
forgotten. But how can I ever forget the two lines of "grape-vine" at
the very bottom which filled out an otherwi