"'Son, do you think the Lord was so forgetful of his children as to put all the gold in the world out yonder in California?' Says he, 'That potato-patch over there is a gold-mine, and there's a gold-mine in that wheat-field, and another one in the corn-field. And if you'll go down in the orchard and gether a load o' them pippin apples and a few punkins, and haul 'em to town and sell 'em, you'll find there's some gold in them.' Says he, 'The whole earth's a gold-mine, if men jest have the patience to dig it out.' But Henry would go, and I reckon he couldn't help it, poor boy! Some folks are born to stay at home, and some are born with the wanderin' fever in their bones." I looked at the fertile fields that were the dead man's heritage, and read again the old story of restless human ambition that loses the near and the familiar by grasping at the far-off and unknown. We were nearing the town limits now. Instead of the infrequent farmhouses, we were passing rows of pretty suburban homes. Now and then a fine old elm by the roadside, or within some neat, flowery yard, spoke of the "forest primeval" vanishing before the stealthy march of a growing town. Aunt Jane's face wore the look of the pilgrim who approaches the City Beautiful. She loved the country, and nature had kindly given her the power to love one thing without hating its antithesis. But, apart from Aunt Jane's company, going to town had no attraction for me, to whom a town is only one of those necessary evils whose sum total we call civilization. And while Aunt Jane took delighted notice of the street-cars, the newly laid concrete walks, the sprinkling-cart, and the automobile with its discordant warning voice, my heart turned back regretfully to the narrow wayside path bordered by dusty weeds and watered only by the dew and rain, to the old "dirt road," marked by the track of the lazy ox-team or the two-horse wagon, and hushed and bounded by the great silences of field and wood. Aunt Jane was smiling and looking to right and left, and the children on the street were quick to respond with answering smiles, as the kind old face beamed on them. Chauffeurs and drivers of stylish carriages politely gave us the road, and so we jogged into the little square, the heart of the town. The park was in its spring raiment of young leaves and grass, and the waters of the fountain sparkled in the sunshine. "It's the prettiest little town in the State," said Aunt Jane proudly. "Where shall we go first?" I asked. "There's one place in this town where all us country folks goes first," said Aunt Jane oracularly, "and that's the old drug-store on the corner yonder. Let the mare alone, and she'll go right there without guidin'."