pearin' one by one. The
deer's all gone, and even squirrels are gittin' so skeerce the
legislature'll have to pass a law to protect 'em. And I'm bound to say
the first settlers is a good deal to blame for it all. Game was so
plentiful in them early days that nobody thought about it ever givin'
out. Every man was a hunter--he had to be to provide his family with
meat--and I've heard father say that every boy in them days was born
with a gun in his hand. Old Jonathan Petty, Silas's father, had nine
sons, all of 'em sharpshooters. They used to shoot at squirrels for a
mark, and if they hit the squirrel anywhere but in the head, old
Jonathan'd give 'em a good whippin'. That sort o' trainin' was bound
to make a boy a good marksman, but it was hard on the squirrels."

[Illustration: "I know the delicate differences and resemblances
between the odors of individual roses"
Drawn by G. Patrick Nelson]

I had thought myself deeply learned in the lore of sweet odors. I know
that the orient spells of sandal-wood can intoxicate like the
opium-pipe or the draught of Indian hemp. I know the delicate
differences and resemblances between the odors of individual roses. I
know that when nature made the coarse hollyhock, she gave it the
almond perfume that floats over the waves of the Hellespont from the
petals of the patrician oleander growing on its banks. And I know
that, in the same mood, she dowered the vulgar horseweed with the
breath of the mignonette. Every odor is to me as a note of music, and
I know the discords and harmonies in the long, long scale of perfume.
I know that heliotrope and mignonette make a dissonance, and
heliotrope and tea-roses a perfect third; that there is a chord of
melody in heliotrope, tea-roses, and honeysuckle; and in the
orange-blossom or tuberose a dominant note that is stronger than any
symphony of perfume that can be composed from summer's garden-beds.
There are perfumes as evanescent as the dreams of youth, and others as
persistent as the memories of childhood. Go into the fields in
February, gather the dead penny-royal that has stood through the rains
and snows of a long winter, and you will find in its dry stems and
shriveled leaves the same gracious scent the green plant has in June.
A rose of last October is a poor deflowered thing; but turn to the
ice-bound garden-walks where, a month before, the chrysanthemum stood
in autumn splendor. The beautiful acanthus-like leaves and the once