And then began four months
of blessed life. Never a gas-bill nor a water-leak,
never a crack in the furnace nor a man to put in coal,
never a request to speak for the benefit of the Fenians,
never the necessity of attending at a primary meeting.
The ladies found in their walks these gentle Mexican
children, simple, happy, civil, and with the strange idea
that the object for which life is given is that men may
live. They came home with new wealth untold every day--
of ipomoea, convolvulus, passion-flowers, and orchids.
The gentlemen brought back every day a new species, even
a new genus,--a new illustration of evolution, or a new
mystery to be accounted for by the law of natural
selection. Night was all sleep; day was all life.
Digestion waited upon appetite; appetite waited upon
exercise; exercise waited upon study; study waited upon
conversation; conversation waited upon love. Could it be
that November was over? Can life run by so fast? Can it
be that Christmas has come? Can we let life go by so
fast? Is it possible that it is the end of January? We
cannot let life go so fast. Really, is this St.
Valentine's Day! When ever did life go so fast?
And with the 1st of March the mules were ordered, and
they moved to the next higher level. The men and women
walked. And there, on the grade of a new climate,
they began on a new botany, on new discoveries, and happy
life found new forms as they began again.
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