Needless to say, the Burt household moved from the sweating city every June. Summer torridity in New York is an unnatural thing. It does not come gently like the fires of France or Italy. It is as if the monstrous city had been rushing, rushing, rushing--all of the winter. At last it got overheated. That was the summer. Only a very young and healthy person can rush himself into a sweat and husband his good nature. New York’s overheatedness is angry. So those that can, leave her alone, until she is cool again and ready for another rushing. The summer house of the Burts on this occasion was an old splendid mansion hidden in three acres of uncultivated woodland. It was but an hour from New York. From the macadam highway where the motors flashed continually by, a rustic road led past a fence and a tiny wooden bridge. The bridge was over a thread of brooklet. Thick shrubs smothered it from sight. And all of the gentle green things here were stained with dust and matted with gasoline. The road ran a hundred yards, between great oaks and willows. Here, shielded splendidly, was the house. There were great white pillars. The forward wall was brick. The porch was broad and open. And within, the high-ceilinged, ample rooms were perpetually cool. Rambler roses, petunias and canna surrounded the porch, above which on either side were frames for wistaria and grape-vines. From the porch one could hear the crash of the motors, glimpse their dust. And in the evenings, their lamps shot into view, flooded a space of foliage and then clapped away. This did not interest Quincy--although it was Marsden’s chief delight. But at the house’s rear lay a thick, brambled bit of forest--a complete miniature of nature. Within a few acres, the boy discovered rocks and hills, valleys and rivers, a settlement of birds that made symphony each night over a sunken pond where the frogs croaked, and a dingle utterly enclosed in elder-bushes where a space of grass lay sweet and gentle, in contrast to the riot of rough foliage without. Here he could steal away and be as well secluded from alien sight and sound as if home were in another State--save when the wind brought him his mother’s voice, scolding the servants in the kitchen. “Look here, little East Wind,” he would scold in turn, “are you turned traitor, to bring me _that_?” And straightway, the wind would curl about the willow tree, and giggle a bit and stop. He had been gazing at that tree a long time--and many times. His dingle sloped somewhat so that, for comfort, he had always to lie facing one way. That way was nearly west. And it brought the willow full into his vision. Of a sudden, this struck him as a portent. “Oh, great willow tree,” he asked, “is it on purpose that I must always gaze on you and see the sun fall through your fingers?”