ABEL GOODFRIEND
GLAMOR of fresh winds that ruffle blue waves to thin lines of foam, tall elms with swaying branches, elderberry bushes billowing in white bloom against the velvet back ground of dark pines, and all the rich color and prodigality of July frame my mental picture of Abel Goodfriend, chief sustainer of our Summer existence. Rugged he is, and homely and kind. For fifteen long years he put up our ice, hauled, and split our firewood, was our dairyman, green-grocer and chore-boy all in one. His little frame house, which had a way of blossoming out in different shades of paint on successive seasons, stood on the main shore not far from our dot of an Island, and the vise-like grip of his horny hand extended in annual welcome, with the light of the honest blue eye above it looking straight-forwardly into your own, was like the very incarnation of Nature herself guaranteeing another season's harvest of benefactions. Indeed, one scarcely differentiated him from
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