“Dear me, dear me, you should always put off till to-morrow what you can get out of doing to-day. You can do aplenty of roughing it when you get to Wyoming. Go on to bed now and enjoy a good spring mattress while you have the chance.” Daylight came all too soon, with Sarah Jane summoning us to a breakfast of cornmeal mush and cream, fried perch, buckwheat cakes with maple syrup and cups of amber coffee. “Let me know if you find anything that I can do to help along. I’d like to be of more use in the world than I can be hibernating here,” she called after us as we pedalled down the lane. I can still see her merry smile as she leaned over the gate, vigorously waving her sunbonnet in farewell. FIVE _May 7th_, AT CRAB-APPLE HEDGE. FIVE _May 7th. At Crab-Apple Hedge._ We are in a new world. All day long we press forward, sometimes riding and again on foot, for the roads are rough and often muddy; and on every hand the beauties of an Illinois spring unfold before our enraptured gaze. With the western spring I am familiar. In March and April acres on acres of greasewood blossoms and wild lilacs were all swaying in the ocean breeze that sweeps the wide reaches of our Southern California valleys each afternoon. A wild spirit of freedom, an almost Pagan joyousness and gaiety is manifest, which speaks of primitive things and appeals to the elemental essence of the soul. But here Nature approaches in more tender intimacy. Little love flowers snuggle on her breast. The whole earth palpitates with a sweet warmth and promise of beauties to follow. On our right stretches a crab-apple hedge in full bloom, a veritable glory of beauty and fragrance, which crowns a ridge whence rolling acres fall gradually away, revealing, here and there, farmhouses surrounded by kitchen gardens and groups of fruit trees, billowy plumes of soft colour, some outlined by the tender green of spring. The smoke of noontime fires lazily ascends from the chimneys, the cackle of hens and other barnyard sounds come faintly on the breeze. My heart aches with the homing impulse. My mind turns to the experiences of the past few days. Wednesday the air was clear and balmy, and as night approached we stopped beneath a bridge where thick trees screened our camp from view. The wires were driven in the ground, the modest campfire lighted, and soon the delicious aroma of boiling cocoa and grilled steak whetted appetites already ravenous.