A RAMBLER'S LEASE

BY

BRADFORD TORREY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1892

Copyright, 1889,
By BRADFORD TORREY.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The writer of this little book has found so much pleasure in other men's woods and fields that he has come to look upon himself as in some sort the owner of them. Their lawful possessors will not begrudge him this feeling, he believes, nor take it amiss if he assumes, even in this public way, to hold a rambler's lease of their property. Should it please them to do so, they may accept the papers herein contained as a kind of return, the best he knows how to offer, for the many favors, alike unproffered and unasked, which he has received at their hands. His private opinion is that the world belongs to those who enjoy it; and taking this view of the

matter, he cannot help thinking that some of his more prosperous neighbors would do well, in legal phrase, to perfect their titles. He would gladly be of service to them in this regard.

CONTENTS.

A RAMBLER'S LEASE.

MY REAL ESTATE.

Every autumn the town of W—— sends me a tax-bill, a kindly remembrance for which I never fail of feeling grateful. It is pleasant to know that after all these years there still remains one man in the old town who cherishes my memory,—though it be only "this publican." Besides, to speak frankly, there is a measure of satisfaction in being reminded now and then of my dignity as a landed proprietor. One may be never so rich in stocks and bonds, government consols and what not, but, acceptable as such "securities" are, they are after all not quite the same as a section of the solid globe itself. True, this species of what we may call astronomic or planetary property will sometimes prove comparatively

unremunerative. Here in New England (I know not what may be true elsewhere) there is a class of people whom it is common to hear gossiped about compassionately as "land poor." But, however scanty the income to be derived from it, a landed investment is at least substantial. It will never fail its possessor entirely. If it starve him, it will offer him a grave. It has the prime quality of permanence. At the very worst, it will last as long as it is needed. Railroads may be "wrecked," banks be broken, governments become bankrupt, and we be left to mourn; but when the earth departs we shall go with it. Yes, the ancient form of speech is correct,—land is real; as the modern phrase goes, translating Latin into Saxon, land is the thing; and though we can scarcely reckon it among the necessaries of life, since so many do without it, we may surely esteem it one of the least dispensable of luxuries.

But I was beginning to speak of my tax-bill, and must not omit to mention a further advantage of real estate over other forms of property. It is certain not to be overlooked by the town assessors. Its

proprietor is never shut up to the necessity of either advertising his own good fortune, or else submitting to pay less than his rightful share of the public expenses,—a merciful deliverance, for in such a strait, where either modesty or integrity must go to the wall, it is hard