were in the air; and, as the day closed and the pleasant sights were shut out, I heard the clear call of the kill-deer plover as they passed overhead, heard it until it mingled with my dreams. “Providence Farm” is indeed well named, for the birdy blessing of Providence rests upon it; but were men more given to considering the ways and wants of wild life, we might find such pleasant places on every hand. Farms appear to be growing less farm-like. The sweet simplicity of colonial days has been well-nigh obliterated, and nothing really better has replaced it. On the other hand, a modern “country place,” where Nature is pared down until nothing but the foundation-rocks remain, is, to say the least, an eyesore. There is more pleasure and profit in an Indian trail than in an asphaltum driveway. Westward lie the meadows, and beyond them the river. Seen as a whole, they are beautiful and, like all of Nature’s work, will bear close inspection. The bird’s-eye view to-day was too comprehensive to be altogether enjoyable: it was bewildering. How completely such a tract epitomizes a continent! The little creek is a river; the hillock, a mountain; the brushland, a forest; the plowed tract, a desert. If this fact were not so generally forgotten we would be better content with what is immediately about us. Mere bigness is not everything. So, too, with animal life. We spend time and money to see the creatures caged in a menagerie, and never see the uncaged ones in the thicket behind the house. Every lion must roar, or we have not seen the show; a lion rampant is everything, a lion couchant, nothing. There was no visible violence in the meadows to-day; Nature was couchant, and I was thankful. When the tempest drives over the land I want my snug harbor by the chimney-throat. The sparks can fly upward to join the storm if they will. The storms I enjoy are matters of hearsay. Take up a ponderous government quarto of the geological survey and glance over the splendid plates of remarkable rocks, cañons, and high hills, and then look out of your window at the fields and meadow. What a contrast! Yes, a decided one, and yet if you take an open-eyed walk you will find a good deal of the same thing, but on a smaller scale. You have not thought of it before; that is all. I put this matter to a practical test not long ago, and was satisfied with the result. The last plate had been looked at and the book was closed with a sigh, and a restless youth, looking over the wide range of fields before him, was thinking of the grand mountains, strange deserts, and deep cañons pictured in the volume on his lap, and comparing such a country with the monotonous surroundings of his home. “What a stupid place this part of the world is!” he said at last. “I wish I could go out West.” “Perhaps it is not so stupid as it looks,” I replied. “Let’s take a walk.” I knew what the book described at which the lad had been looking, and had guessed his thoughts. We started for a ramble.