The Argosy for May — page 173: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AN ENTICING PROSPECT. By RALPH ENGLAND. The matter of mountain air, pretty girls, and restful quiet in selecting a location for a summer holiday. . HAT you need, my boy,” said the doctor, examining my tongue with some concern, “is a few weeks of thorough rest. “Your system is badly run down. You've been working too hard, I pre- sume. You require recreation more than medicine. Go out into the coun- try. Select a nice, quiet place up in the mountains. Loaf there for two or three weeks. Don’t worry. Don’t do any- thing except bask in God’s glorious sun- shine, and fill your lungs with fine, clear, crisp mountain air. That is all— except my bill, which is five dollars, please.”’ . I ‘handed the physician his fee and went home to look over the summer re- sort advertisements in the daily papers, in search of a suitable spot in the moun- tains where I could take the rest cure prescribed and endeavor to restore my shattered nervous system. There was apparently no dearth of such places. All advertisements sound- ed so alluring that it was extremely dif- ficult to make a selection. ' Each advertiser claimed that his par- ticular retreat was the best in the world. Each declared that the air to be breathed on his premises was the very finest brand of air to be breathed anywhere. As for the quality of the food and sleeping accommodations, and the nat- ural beauties of the surrounding scenery, none of the resort-keepers who adver- _tised was willing to yield first place in these important respects. The advertisements varied in phrase- ology, of course. Some of them were written in the first person, some in the third—at least, three of them were in verse—the advertisers evidently being of the firm opinion that mere prose could not do justice to their establish- ments. Some of the advertisements were in big. black type, others were printed in italics, several were illustrated with half-tone or line-cut pictures of preten- tious looking hotels and farmhouses. There was one little advertisement in one of the papers, however, which was a great contrast to all the others because of the modesty of its claims. It was a plain little six-line notice, which seemed quite out of place among the .more pretentious announcements. It read: Shady Bower Farm, Greene County, situated in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, 6,000 feet above sea-level; bathing, rowing, and fishing free to guests; good, wholesome food; board, seven dollars per week. It was the conservative tone of this announcement which appealed to me most of all. . “No doubt this fellow’s place is just as good, if not better, than these others,” I said to myself. “It isn’t always the man who makes the most noise who has the best wares to offer. The proprietor of Shady Bower Farm is probably too modest and too simple to proclaim the merits of his establishment above a whisper.” That fact spoke well for him, in my opinion. I judged him to be an hon- est, simple child of Nature, uncontam- inated by contact with the guile and hypocrisy of city life, who looked you straight in the eye when he addressed you, and who would rather die than dilute the milk. | There was something about the name of the place, too, which attracted me. “Shady Bower Farm”! It certainly sounded enticing. I could almost smell the new-mown hay and hear the melodious swishing of the tree-branches as they were swept by the keen, invig- orating mountain breezes. 360 (EO) 1O@OOLK (C@