Before the war, going for the mail was a task accomplished with a minimum of effort by jumping into the rural jeep which we like to call the station wagon, and buzzing out the river road to the highway. After it became necessary to conserve our precious gasoline supply, it was decided that someone should walk to the mail box, so I was elected with only one dissenting vote. It didn’t take long, you may be sure, for me to go by way of the lane a walk of half a mile instead of the’ longer -way along the river road. Each. day this task becomes dearer to me and not for worlds would I pass it on to anyone else.

It was early spring when I started my job. Along the lane, violets and spring beauties nodded and from the branches of the bare trees I was greeted by a Glee Club of bird voices.

The bright days tumbled headlong into early summer. Glass was unbelievably green and soft. Cardinals and red-winged blackbirds darted here and there among the wild grape vines. On the weathered old fence. vetch affectionately .clambered and . proudly displayed delicate pink and lavender blossoms. From the field beyond came a Biblical fragrance of freshly plowed earth. My cup was full when from a small glade carpeted in wild geranium, a flock of bluebirds rope and few all around me, their heavenly blue feathers shimmering.

Later in the summer, the air lay heavy and still’ n my lane. Lazy butterflies floated across the landscape and once, when I was out a little earlier than usual, I Saw a mother skunk marshalling five cute- babies through the star grass to safety.

My feet walked a carpet of dewy diamonds set with many colored stones, some of which I carried home to use in nooks of the rock garden.

Autumn rains brought mud to the trail, but the smilax held high its globes of purplish black berries and bittersweet replaced’ the vetch as a cape over the shoulders of the old fence. Goldenrod and purple asters foamed in the fence corners, and it the field, drying corn and rotund pumpkins flashed me a warning that the year was growing old.