Rolf did not smoke. He had promised his mother that he would not
until he was a man, and something brought her back home now with
overwhehning force; that was the beds they had made of fragrant
balsam boughs. "Cho-ko- tung or blister tree" as Quonab called
it. His mother had a little sofa pillow, brought from the North
-- a "northern pine" pillow they called it, for it was stuffed
with pine needles of a kind not growing in Connecticut. Many a
time had Rolf as a baby pushed his little round nose into that
bag to inhale the delicious odour it gave forth, and so it became
the hallowed smell of all that was dear in his babyhood, and it
never lost its potency. Smell never does. Oh, mighty aura! that,
in marching by the nostrils, can reach and move the soul; how
wise the church that makes this power its handmaid, and through
its incense overwhelms all alien thought when the worshipper,
wandering, doubting, comes again to see if it be true, that here
doubt dies. Oh, queen of memory that is master of the soul! how
fearful should we be of letting evil thought associated grow with
some recurrent odour that we love.
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