The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-20
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

I spent delightful afternoon few days ago on the mountain at Bracewood went out with MT. Barrett to see the flowers.
 Few people even who live in Birming- ham realize how many beautiful and picturesque sites there are in and around the city for summer homes. I am fa- miliar with the much advertised Land of the Sky,'' but here at our very doors can be found scenic effects which vls with the much lauded ones in the Ashe- vile district.
 I live in the Country club section. It is almost like living in an entirely differ ent city. We are above the roar of traf- fic, far away from the dust, untroubled by the smoke, and frequently when the downtown section is hid in fog our heads are lit up by the blessed blue of heaven.
 The golf links almost surround me. The grounds are beautifully kept, like an English park. High Ball is miniature mountain carpeted with green. The lake is a tiny mirror catching and holding the beauty of the sky. The famous club house looks more like rambling home than public building.
 The walks through the district are ideal from every standpoint. The homes ora Ioyslv +he yarde wall oronmed the flowers profuse, the shrubs plentiful. There are roads leading up to the crest of the mountain and to the east are miles of virgin forests threaded with paths as reminder of the days when Indians trailed their way through them in search of game.
 But didn't start out to talk about my home surroundings, but to tell of the lovely spot out on Shades mountain where MT, Barrett has built for himself lodse for his wife and bairns that makes a city man yearn to get back close to nature and learn the secret of the simple life.
 Any rich fool with money can build palace, a mansion, or a house, but It takes even more than brains and money to build home; it requires that in ms heart he shall have longing for lAaee where he can get away from the big, busy world Into a spot free from care, where he can be himself without pose.
 
 But it requires more than this, for ] hold that no man can make home. IL takes a womans hand to give the finish ing touch which transforms a place in which a man eats and sleeps into the wonderful thing of which poor, homeless John Howard Payne sang. Yes; there is no rlace like home. but there is no such thing without the fragrance of wife or mother.
 As soon as we got to the mountain top in view of Bracewood l realized that l was going to see a home. The breath or the roses made me conscious of it, the song of the birds announced it. the very flowers bowed their heads in welcome and the tendrils of the vines were out stretched to draw me in.
 A castle may be perched on cras a palace be set as a picture In spacious grounds, a mansion be we'll placed on boulevard, but home must just grow up out of the soil and be a part of the scenery. I looked at Bracewood and 1t fit as naturally into the landscape as the trees or rocks
 l have seen country homes that were too ambitious Somehow they seemed 0 be mere city homes transpianted. About them was no sense of repose. The buiIi- ings were too stately and regular, the grounds too formal They had an air of restraint and not of careless abandon One instinctively felt that in them he