The itinerary of the American Country Girl might thus be followed from the energizing cool of the morning when the impact of the day's work is so buoyantly met to the quieting cool of the evening when rest is so joyously welcomed. So far in our investigation there has always been some source of hope and enthusiasm to be discovered. If the margin of unbearable drudgery seems to be reached, there is the solace of music at evening when the whole family join in an orchestra of violin, cornet and piano. If the days seem to grow unendurably monotonous, a pageant looms on the horizon to capture the interest and to make life fascinating at once. A fourteen-hour day of hard labor is broken by a recess in the midst to write a letter and send it out to some girl friend in the great big world that shall keep the secluded spirit in some touch with the outside currents of life. At the stroke of eleven the daily paper comes; at the twentieth of the month the magazine. A French or an organ lesson is possible; and life, though burdened is kept enlivened on every side. In such homes, work is not drudgery and the word "monotonous" has no fatal meaning. Perhaps it may be said that there is always something that can be found, if it is looked for searchingly enough, to make a life of hard work bearable. Work is good; all of us write that down on paper and believe that we believe it. But when the principle is illustrated in a practical form many things are required to sustain our conviction. There must be a meaning, a hope, a definition, a goal. Each life is a system set in with other systems. To make one of them a success, all must move on right lines toward the chosen end. Other letters from these sensible young women in the rural realm will perhaps make us feel this more keenly than the foregoing. CHAPTER V WHAT ONE COUNTRY GIRL DID THORN APPLES AND SWEET ACORNS I love the taste of thorn apples and sweet acorns and sumac and choke-cherries and all the wild things we used to find on the road to school. And I love the feel of pussy willows and the inside of chestnut burrs. I love to walk on a country road where only a few double teams have left a strip of turf in the middle of the track. And I love the creaking of the sleigh runners and the snapping of nail-heads in the clapboards on a bitter cold January night. In the first cool nights I love the sound of the first hard rainfall on the roof of the gable room. And I love the smell of the dead leaves in the woods in the fall. I love the odor of those red apples that grew on the trees that died before I went back to grandpa's again. I love the fragrance of the first pink and blue hepaticas which have hardly any scent at all. I love the smell of the big summer raindrops on the dusty dry steps of the school house. I love the breath of the great corn fields when you ride past them on an August evening in the dark. And I love to see the wind blowing over tall grass.