Then the home going, overtaking the regiment at San Francisco and the thunder of guns and welcoming whistles as we reached our native Tennessee. And there, amid the great hubbub, and the welcoming committee as our train rolled in, stood the old General, my grandsire, holding back the crowd with his crutch that he might get to me first, and rattling around on his wooden leg, shouting to my great embarrassment:—"_By God, there he is—Jack—my grandson, Jack! I raised him—He’s my daughter’s son—a game cock—the old blue hen’s chicken!..._" We have it framed now, Eloise, that telegram from the President. "EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON. NOVEMBER 21, 1899. On the Nation’s roll of honor is the First Tennessee Regiment U.S. Volunteers, and nobly has the distinction been won. Their country’s gratitude awaits the homecoming of these brave men. WILLIAM McKINLEY." * * * * * Home again, Eloise, Home and June. Born of the same May mother, but differing so, this and that other June! How un-of-kin they seem to be! That last dance, the death ride over the bars, homeless, the despair of that June a year ago. And now home again and The Home Stretch mine! June, and writing this to you as I sit in the old sweet place under the old sweet trees, under the hickories we loved so, and afar off is the flush of old gold above the violet of the western hills. And the same June sounds come over to me: the call of an ewe to an errant lamb; the neigh of a mare and the answering whinny of her colt; the distant staccato clatter of binders amid the wheat. And a wood-thrush deep in our laurel thicket rinsing clear the air around with her liquid notes.... Since Christmas I have seen it all, for it was Christmas when the boys came marching home, seen it again and again, never tiring of seeing it, life as it shuttles across the loom of the Middle Basin. If the canvas were a meadow backgrounded in green, this is how the picture would be: a patch of red-bud now and then for early spring; and later, a green sheen creeping like a high-tide over the hills. But later still, after the wheat is harvested it were a stubblefield canvassed to cleanness; there would run a riot of passion flowers and morning glories in brave, bold colors of beauty. And the picture would be June in the Middle Basin. I have sat this afternoon watching the trees on the round breast of the hill across the way, a shield of green on the round shoulder of the hill; and as I looked I had a strange upliftingness which I knew was of poetry and that it was the melting of my heart because it was June again and home and because of the love of you. Why should I potter and make excuse of it? If there be love there is a poem. Take mine as it is—this voice of the trees—as the sweetness of it all came over me, listening, listening and loving you, Eloise. WHAT SAY THE BEECHES?