Once at the house, Ivan and Maria wandered through the rooms, hand in hand, smiling shyly, and then laughing with pleasure. As Maria stopped before the little mirror to unwrap her head and set the hair-pins, Ivan snatched up the jingling toy and thrust it in the mantel closet, for somehow it wounded him to think of his mistake. But Maria cautioned him not to break it, saying: “It may be useful yet, who knows? Ah, who knows anything?” Then leading her about the yard, her eyes rested on the sprouting wheat field and again tears filled them. “What is it that speaks, Ivan, my friend?” she asked. “Something we have left behind and wish to forget,” he answered shortly. “Yes, but what we are glad to leave, we are more glad to find here before us,” and she laid her face against his, which was also wet, but smiling; and high above their heads shot a wild goose arrow. “What is that?” asked Maria, pointing. “It is a sign of spring, and a good omen of birds,” Ivan answered. V TREE OF LIFE =MAY=—THE PLANTING MOON One day, Evan and I played _make believe_ and went a-Maying. This was not very long ago, yet in those days, high-road and byways were divided between horse and man only and therefore were our own, while we jogged along plucking at the branches and trailers that we passed, letting the horses browse, reins upon neck without risk of danger. The _make believe_ was that we were a couple of carefree children playing at going on a journey to seek the Tree of Life, which, should we chance to find in blossom and walk in its shadow, would enable us to live as long as we wished. This had been one of my childhood’s plays, a hybrid born of Genesis and Pilgrim’s Progress, belonging to days spent alone in the garden when father had gone a day’s journey to see some patients over the hills, and Aunt Lot was immersed in preserves and forgot me. Blissful forgetfulness of children by their elders that is one of the gates to wonderland! We took the idea as a motive for _make believe_, and if one plays at being a child, one must complete the game, turn loose the overworked horses of every day, Proof and Reason, and harness in their places Instinct and Belief, steeds who may be trusted to know the straightest road to happiness. As to the Maying part, that is a play also, and, at least in the New England country, a game of chance if you do not know the moves, but an ecstasy if the combinations fall right.