LETTERS FROM AN OREGON RANCH
Our young lady knows these hills and woods and streams like a book. She knows the haunts of the wild-flowers, but not always their names,—to my regret, for, not learning them of her, I despair of learning them at all. She it was who told us of the rhododendrons and where they grew; it was four miles farther back in the mountains; a part of the way there was no road, only a tangled trail, the last half-mile straight up. Though eager to go at once to that field Elysian, my ardor cooled somewhat as I thought of the walk of eight miles, part of it a straight climb, with active housework before and after taking. I decided the rhododendrons of the mountains must come to Mahomet. And come they did; for Bert, after hearing of them, never really enjoyed a good night’s rest until he had scaled the heights crowned by those blushing rose-trees. He returned from his trip late in the evening, footsore and weary, but glowing with enthusiasm, declaring he had seen the most wonderful sight in all the world. “Fully a half-acre of those magnificent blooms! Just think of it!—a pink-canopied island in a sea of green!”
He had carried a great arm-load of their flowery branches all that distance, and for the next ten days “rose-pink rhododendron bells, with narrow leaves of satin’s sheen,” glorified and illumined this old box-house.
We were surprised and pleased to find our new friend a most intelligent and appreciative reader of good literature. The books in her home, though few, are of
199
