enery
and surrounded itself with a limitless reach of cool, vibrant, amber
atmosphere, and looked out upon a colorful and fragrant wilderness of
flowers, and he would have dwelt in the solitudes that God made.

As I walked, a fragrance wrapped me around as with a veil of radiant
mist. It came straight from the heart of his many-varied roses that
claimed much of his time and care. The shadow of two great cedar trees
reached protecting arms after me as I went up to the steps of the
cottage hidden away in a green and purple and golden and pink tangle
of bloom and sweet odors; ivy and wistaria and jasmine and
honeysuckle. Beside the steps grew some of his special pet roses.
Their glowing and fragrant presence sometimes afforded him a congenial
topic of discourse when a guest chanced to approach too closely the
subject of the literary work of the host, if one may use the term in
connection with a writer who so constantly disclaimed any approach to
literature, and so persistently declined to take himself seriously.

In the front yard was a swing that appealed to me reminiscently with
the force of the olden days when I had a swing of my very own. As I
"let the old cat die," we talked of James Whitcomb Riley's poem,
"Waitin' fer the Cat to Die," and Mr. Harris told me of the visit
Riley had made to him not long before. Two men with such cheerful
views of life could not but be congenial, and it was apparent that the
visit had brought joy to them both.

I did not see the three dogs and seven cats--mystic numbers!--but felt
confident that my genial host could not have been satisfied with any
less.

The charmed circle in which Br'er Fox and Br'er Rabbit shone as social
stars is yet with us, and we shall not let it go out from our lives.
The mystic childhood of a dim, mysterious race is brought to us
through these beings that have come to us from the olden time "when
animals talked like people."

"The Sign of the Wren's Nest" is peopled by these legendary forms with
their never-dying souls. They lurk in every corner and peer out from
every crevice. They hide behind the trees, and sometimes in the
moonlight we see them looking out at us as we walk along the path.
They crouch among interlacing vines and look at us through the lacy
screen with eyes in which slumber the traditions of the ages.

We look for the Magician who, with a wave of the hand, made all these
to live and move before us. We know he must be there. We "cannot ma