The sunlight and shadows in the woods were beautiful that morning, the sunlight a little pale and the air with that quality of hushed expectancy that the coming of autumn brings. Birds were calling to one another and telling of the wonderful Southland and the journey they must take before long. The whole, wide outdoors called me and tired muscles and nerves rasped from the summer’s rush pleaded for rest, but there was pickle to make, drying apples to attend to, vegetables and fruits that must be gathered and stored, the Saturday baking and the thousand things of the everyday routine to be done.
“Oh, for a little time to enjoy the beauties around me,” I thought. “Just a little while to be free of the tyranny of things that must be done!” A feeling of bitterness crept into my soul. “You’ll have plenty of leisure some day when you are past enjoying it,” I thought. “You know, in time, you always get what you have longed for and when you are old and feeble and past active use then you’ll have all the leisure you ever have wanted. But my word! You’ll not enjoy it!”
I was horrified at these thoughts, which almost seemed spoken to me. We do seem at times to have more than one personality, for as I gave a dismayed gasp at the prospect, I seemed to hear a reply in a calm, quiet voice.
“You need not lose your power of enjoyment nor your sense of the beautiful if you desire to keep them,” it said. “Keep the doors of your mind and heart open to them and your appreciation of such things will grow and you will be able to enjoy your well earned leisure when it comes even tho you should be older and not so strong. It is all in your own hands and may be as you wish.”
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