It is as like the atmosphere of Italy as the sturdy peach-blossoms which redden Hesperus boughs in March are like the softer almond-flowers. The same indescribable grace and radiance are in both essences. But there are the Hesperus blizzards--vast rivers of icy air which sweep from upper currents and ensphere the softness and translucent loveliness of the earth with such frosts as are said to fill all heaven between the stars. Under such dynamic skies young men and women have been gathering now these forty years--before the September equinox has fairly quenched the glow of summer heat. During a long æstivation a sun burning in an almost cloudless heaven has beaten upon them day by day. The glow has purified and expanded their skin, has loosened their joints, and clothed them in the supple body of the south. Through the darkness of the night ten thousand stars have shone above their slumbers, and wind voices out of space have phu-phy-phis-pered through secretive pines and rolled tz-tz-tz upon the leathery leaves of oaks. Such days and nights have been over them since the wild grape tossed its fragrant blossoms in damp ravines in the passion of May. These students have come from all kinds of homes, from meagre town houses, from the plainest and most forlorn farm-houses, and from other houses laden and bursting with plenty--and plenty in Hesperus is always more plenty than plenty anywhere else. Many of these young people have been nurtured delicately, but a large number have doubtless tasted the bitterness of overwork and the struggle of life before their teens. Perhaps their parents came to Hesperus newly wedded, or in the early years of married life with a brood of little children. If their coming was not in the stridulous cars of some Pacific or Santa Fé railway, then it was over the hard-packed soil in most picturesque of pioneer fashions--a huge canvas-covered wagon carrying the family cook-stove, beds, and apparel, and, under its creaking sides, kettles for boilers, pails for fetching water from the nearest run, and axes to cut wood for evening fires. Every article the family carried must answer some requirement or use. The horses, too, have their appointed tasks, for, the journey once accomplished, they will mark off the eighty acres the family are going to pre-empt, and afterwards pull the plough through the heavy malarious sod. On the seat of the wagon the wife and mother, wrapped in extremes of cold in a patchwork quilt, at times nursed the baby, and in any case drove with a workmanlike hand. John Goodman was sometimes back with the collie, snapping his blacksnake at the cattle and urging them on. But oftenest father and mother were up in the seat, and boy and girl trooping behind in barefooted and bareheaded innocence, enjoying happy equality and that intimate contact with the cows which milky udders invite.