_Morrison._ Sticking it out over Thanksgiving Day. I said I would. I tell you, it is gay Down here. You ought to see the Hunter's Moon, These silver nights, prinking in our lagoon. You ought to see our sunsets, glassy red, Shading to pink and violet overhead. You ought to see our mornings, still and clear, White silence, far as you can look and hear. You ought to see the leaves--our oaks and ashes Crimson and yellow, with those gorgeous splashes, Purple and orange, against the bluish green Of the pine woods; and scattered in between The scarlet of the maples; and the blaze Of blackberry-vines, along the dusty ways And on the old stone walls; the air just balm, And the crows cawing through the perfect calm Of afternoons all gold and turquoise. Say, You ought to have been with wife and me to-day, A drive we took--it would have made you sick: The pigeons and the partridges so thick; And on the hill just beyond Barkin's lane, Before you reach the barn of Widow Payne, Showing right up against the sky, as clear And motionless as sculpture, stood a deer! Say, does that jar you just a little? Say, How have you found things up there, anyway, Since you got back? Air like a cotton string To breathe? The same old dust on everything, And in your teeth, and in your eyes? The smoke From the soft coal, got long beyond a joke? The trolleys rather more upon your curves, And all the roar and clatter in your nerves? Don't you wish you had stayed here, too? _Wetherbee._ Well, yes, I do at certain times, I must confess. I swear it is enough at times to make you swear You would almost rather be anywhere Than here. The building up and pulling down, The getting to and fro about the town, The turmoil underfoot and overhead, Certainly make you wish that you were dead, At first; and all the mean vulgarity Of city life, the filth and misery You see around you, make you want to put Back to the country anywhere, hot-foot. Yet--there are compensations. _Morrison._ Such as? _Wetherbee._ Why, There is the club. _Morrison._ The club I can't deny. Many o' the fellows back there? _Wetherbee._ Nearly all. Over the twilight cocktails there are tall Stories and talk. But you would hardly care; You have the natives to talk with down there, And always find them meaty. _Morrison._ Well, so-so. Their words outlast their ideas at times, you know, And they have _staying_ powers. The theaters All open now? _Wetherbee._ Yes, all. And it occurs To me: there's one among the things that you Would have enjoyed; an opera with the new-- Or at least the last--music by Sullivan, And words, though not Gilbertian, that ran Trippingly with it. Oh, I tell you what, I'd rather that you had been there than not. _Morrison._ Thanks ever so!