To me there
is nothing on earth equal to that, although what is nearly equal
to it is to go with them for an hour or more, as we like to do on
Sunday afternoons, into the woods, where we can live for a while
near the heart of nature, where no one can disturb or vex us,
surrounded by pure air, the trees, the shrubbery, the flowers,
and the sweet fragrance that springs from a hundred plants,
enjoying the chirp of the crickets and the songs of the birds.
This is solid rest.
My garden, also, what little time I can be at Tuskegee, is
another source of rest and enjoyment. Somehow I like, as often as
possible, to touch nature, not something that is artificial or an
imitation, but the real thing. When I can leave my office in time
so that I can spend thirty or forty minutes in spading the
ground, in planting seeds, in digging about the plants, I feel
that I am coming into contact with something that is giving me
strength for the many duties and hard places that await me out in
the big world. I pity the man or woman who has never learned to
enjoy nature and to get strength and inspiration out of it.
Aside from the large number of fowls and animals kept by the
school, I keep individually a number of pigs and fowls of the
best grades, and in raising these I take a great deal of
pleasure.
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