V
I have been thinking, dear Nell, that my letters have shown you only the sombre side of our ranch life. When you think of us in our new Oregon home, you probably imagine a dreary, grim old house, perched high on a hillside; only that, and nothing more. You know nothing of the beauty of our surroundings, nothing of the semicircle of towering hills clad from base to summit with the living green of fir trees, seen from our front windows and separated from us by only a very narrow glen,—the latter as green and fresh in January as are our lawns at home in May. Curving and winding through this little valley, with a tracery of green trees and leafless ones, is the loveliest mountain stream that ever the sun shone on,—in summer-time a dreamily murmuring rivulet; in winter a rushing, roaring torrent. Then it comes rollicking and roystering through our little glen, like some mad bacchanalian half crazed by mountain vintage, plunging over rocky terraces, leaping mossy logs, whisking around curves, surging and eddying against ferny banks, clutching in its white arms dead limbs and branches, held one instant, hurled broadcast the next, as
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