LETTERS FROM AN OREGON RANCH
mud, laden with choice branches of arbor vitæ and mistletoe; the driver walking, lines in hand, the lady crouching in the green jungle like a wood-nymph. This contribution was added to our collection; then with scissors and baskets, Mary and I took a turn along an old rail-fence where wild roses grow luxuriantly, cutting and filling our baskets with the long brown stems, each bearing clusters of scarlet rose-apples just the tint of holly-berries. You who are accustomed to the low-growing wild rose of the East will accuse me of romancing when I tell you that those bushes were much higher than our heads. In the summer the fences are hidden by them. When showered by thousands of pink blooms, their beauty and perfume beguile one into the belief that these old lanes lead straight to Paradise. Alice Gary should have lived here; you remember she wrote,—
“And if my eyes all flowers but one must lose,
Our wild sweet-brier would be the one to choose.”
Bringing our seed treasures home, and judiciously mingling them with the dark-green of buckthorn, a species of holly was evolved rivalling if not surpassing the original. The transformation began in our main living-room. The ugly wall-paper and paint we found here have vanished, and we have sage-green walls, with white woodwork except about the old fireplace, which is of black enamel. The mantel we banked high with
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