Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/100

 you will be in the swirl of holiday festivities when this rigmarole reaches you, and will scarcely have time to read it. Up here in the Oregon hills there is none of that “Christmas feel in the air” that Riley speaks of, and we can hardly realize that the event is but three days off. Thinking of it one cannot help longing a little for brilliantly illuminated streets and stores, spectacular show-windows, the hurrying and jostling throng of Christmas shoppers, the bundle-laden crowds of the streets and trolley-cars, the art-exhibits, theatres, concerts, and the fine Christmas music of the churches. What would I not give to hear once again the deep rolling waves of harmony from a big pipe-organ, thrilling and uplifting the soul! But perhaps most of all just at this time we miss our dear old fun-loving friends, dropping in at all hours, brimming over with bright talk of secret plans and projects. Here we have none of that companionship. You will think it incredible when I tell you that since last July I have not spoken to a woman—nor a man, either, except the occasional workmen we have employed,—always, of course, excepting the other two members of our quartet. The most of our near neighbors are men “keeping bachelor’s hall,”—interested, I suppose, in their own problems of life, with no time for visiting. Do you wonder that we talk to our dumb friends the animals?

We were pleased when one night last week the weather suddenly turned cold, freezing the ground