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[Illustration: UNDER THE MISTLETOE]
"I am getting very tired," said a hard brain-worker to me once. "Life isbeginning to drag and lose its zest." This is an experience that canscarcely happen to one who has fallen in love with Nature, or becomedeeply interested in any of her almost infinite manifestations. Mr. andMrs. Clifford of my story are not wholly the creations of fancy. The agedman sketched in the following pages was as truly interested in his gardenand fruit-trees after he had passed his fourscore years as any enthusiastichorticulturist in his prime, and the invalid, whose memory dwells in myheart, found a solace in flowers which no words of mine have exaggerated.If this book tends to bring others into sympathy with Nature, one of itschief missions will be fulfilled.
A love for the soil and all the pursuits of outdoor life is one of themost healthful signs in a people. Our broad and diversified land affordsabundant opportunity for the gratification of every rural taste, andthose who form such tastes will never complain that life is losing itszest. Other pleasures pall with time and are satiated. We outgrow them.But every spring is a new revelation, every summer a fresh, originalchapter of experience, and every autumn a fruition of hopes as well as ofseeds and buds. Nothing can conduce more to happiness and prosperity thanmultitudes of rural homes. In such abodes you will not find Socialists,Nihilists, and other hare-brained reformers who seek to improve the worldby ignoring nature and common-sense. Possession of the soil makes a manconservative, while he, at the same time, is conserved.
The culture of the land is no longer plodding, ox-like drudgery, nor isthe farm a place of humdrum, brainless routine. Science offers her aid onevery hand, and beauty, in numberless forms, is ever present to those whohave eyes and hearts capable of recognizing it. The farmer has a literatureof his own, which every year is growing in proportions and value. He alsohas time for the best literature of the world. It is his own fault if heremains akin to the clod he turns. Is it not more manly to co-work withNature for a livelihood than to eke out a pallid, pitiful existence behinda counter, usurping some woman's place?
Nature is a good mother, after all, in our latitude. She does not coddleand over-indulge her children, but rewards their love abundantly,invigorates them if they dwell in her presence, and develops mind andmuscle, heart and soul, if they obey her laws and seek to know her well.Although infinitely rich, she has not the short-sighted folly of thoseparents who seek to place everything in the hand of a child without cost.On the contrary, she says, "See what you may win, what you may attain."Every crop is a prize to knowledge, skill, industry. Every flower is abeautiful mystery which may be solved in part; every tree is storedsunshine for the hearth, shelter from the storm, a thing of beauty whileit lives, and of varied use when its life is taken. In animals, birds,insects, and vegetation we are surrounded by diversified life, and ourlife grows richer, more healthful and complete, as we enter into theirlife and comprehend it. The clouds above us are not mere reservoirs ofwater for prosaic use. In their light, shade, and exquisite coloring theyare ever a reproach to the blindness of coarse and earthy minds.
The love of Nature is somet