Wandering recently in and out the woods and fields, tramping aimlessly whithersoever fancy led me, I crushed with my feet, at last, a stem of pennyroyal. Catching the warm fragrance of its pungent oil, straightway the little-loved present vanished. How true it is that many an odor, however faint, opens the closed doors of the past! Prosy and commonplace it may seem, but full many a time a whiff from the kitchen of some old farm-house, where I have stopped for a drink of water, recalls another farm-kitchen, redolent of marvelous gingerbread and pies, such as I have failed to find in recent years, and with their tempting spiciness went that subtle odor, from which indeed the whole house was never free, that of sweet-smelling herbs. I am daily thankful that the herbs at least have not changed, as the years roll by. It is the same pennyroyal that my grandmother gathered; and think to what strange use she put it! Made pennyroyal puddings! Let them go down to posterity by name only. The herbs of the field and garden were gathered, each in its proper season, by the folks at home, and in great bunches were suspended from the exposed beams of the old kitchen. In early autumn they made quite a display, but, as the winter wore away, became rather sorry-looking reminders of the past summer. To a limited extent their bulk decreased and their odor became less pronounced; but how seldom were they ever disturbed! I have dared to think that herb-gathering was a survival from prehistoric times, but I never dared to hint this to my grandmother. The nearest to doing this was to coax a braver boy to ask if the old bunches were burned at midnight with secret ceremonies, for they gave place to the new crop each year, yet were not seen lying about the yard. Neither the braver boy nor I could get any satisfaction, but a forcible reprimand instead, for hinting at paganism. I hold, nevertheless, that a trace of it did exist then, and does. Was it not something akin to this that more than one medicinal herb had to be gathered at midnight? This, it is true, was not openly admitted, but unquestionably faith in its virtue as a remedy was diminished if the plant was not gathered as the superstition dictated. Try as we may, the crude faiths of our prehistoric ancestry we can not snap asunder. As elastic bands, they may grow finer and finer with the tension of the centuries, but still, perhaps as but invisible threads, they hold. However steadily herb-using may have been going out of date in my early boyhood, herb-gathering was not, and I may be mistaken when I say that, except the pennyroyal in puddings, sage in sausage, and a bit of thyme and parsley in soup, the dozen others hung in old kitchens were unused except as fly-roosts—a fact that scarcely added to their virtues.