Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/15

 OU write, my dear Nell, that you were amazed to hear we had sold our comfortable city homes, bundled our household possessions into a freight-car, and whirled off to Oregon with the foolish and pastoral notion of locating on ranches; and thereupon you had indignantly remarked, “The whole quartet must be as mad as March hares to do such a reckless thing at their time of life.” The allusion to lunacy may be forgiven; to age, never. We may not be so young as we used to be, but we are not yet quite in our dotage. Don’t you know, my friend, that monotony is stagnation and death to the middle-aged? They need change of scene, and the novelty and excitement that come with it. The tonic of fresh fields and pastures new is both stimulating and rejuvenating, and the Oregon air is an intoxicant like wine,—pure, fresh, and exhilarating. We drank it in with praise and thanksgiving.

You ask if we have found our ranch. I answer, Yes. Do we like it? We are delighted with it.