machine shops,
gas works, filthy streets, and the thousand other manufactories of
villainous smells; where the summer air has no freshness, no forest
odors, or sweetness gathered from fields of grain, the meadows, or the
pastures. To tramp only on stone sidewalks. To know nothing of the
pleasant paths beneath the spreading branches of old primeval trees;
no soft grass for their little feet to press; never to wander along
the streams or the little brooks; to be strangers always to the
beautiful things spread out everywhere in the country in the summer
time. I always feel sad when I see the pale faces of the little
children of the great cities, and marvel how so many of them grow up
to be men and women. It is a hard lot to be cooped up in the city,
vegitating, as it were, in the shade, where there is no grass for
their little feet to press, no fences to climb, or fields to ramble
over, or brooks to wade, or running water on which to float chips, and
wherein to watch the little chubs and shiners dancing and playing
about, or fresh pure air to breathe, or birds to listen to. It is a
thousand pities that the cities could not be emptied every summer of
their little people into the free and open country, where they could
run about, and sport and play, and have free range and plenty of
elbow-room. It would make them so much healthier and happier, so much
more cheerful; their voices of gladness would ring out so much more
joyously in the morning, and their songs be so much more sweet
at night."

I remember an anecdote told me of a little child, born in the great
metropolis, who had never, until her fifth summer, been outside of the
paved streets of New York. Her mother had friends residing in one of
the up-river towns, owning a beautiful farm overlooking the Hudson,
and in early May she paid them a visit, taking her little daughter
with her. Mary, of course, was delighted. Like a bird freed from its
cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among
the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the
full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her,
and her young spirits in wild commotion under the bracing influences
of the country air. "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came
dashing into the parlor, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her
shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I
mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all