The History of Hikery.

Speaking of thrills, apparently to-day is the heyday of hikery. The world has lost its finance but found its feet. But man has always hiked, tramped, walked, wandered, padded the hoof, and added the proof to the ancient adages that “man cannot live by speed alone,” and “a ramble a day keeps the doctor away.” In our youth we never hiked, but we walked a lot. Later, when we found that we could bound along the bitumen on “baloons” we walked a lot less. Now we walk because we don't have to. Hiking is as historic as paregoric. The Wandering Jew lived to a ripe old age through wandering, although he often wondered why he wandered. Lot walked a lot. Alexander wandered a good deal, and one of his descendants still “wanders” at times.

The world must have been a great hikery before the hollows got filled up with water. Now hiking is restricted to one piece of hikescape at a time. With mystery trains rushing hikers from one hike-spot to another

“In the spring the old grow young.”

page 14 the time is approaching when someone will invent sea boots, so that hikers can get their sea legs and tread water, thus fostering hiking on the high seas. Hiking puts spring into the system, and—

What is better in the spring,
Than the free hike-atic swing
From the hips, as light and airy,
Mum and dad and little Mary,
Wilberforce and uncle Herbert,
Breathe Ma Nature's soothing sherbet,
On the hills and in the hollows, Where the caterpillar wallows—
And the ring worms gently ring,
In the spring.