The Fountain of Youth

BIRDS go south in the winter to get warm. Some people in the cold Northern States do the same. The farthest south they can go in the United States is to the corner State, shaped like a dog’s paw, called Florida, which means the land of flowers. On the automobiles that go to Florida you can read the tags of every one of the forty-eight States. People go to Florida in the winter to sit in the sunshine, to bathe in the sea in January, to get rid of shivers, sneezes, and handkerchiefs. It is a winter playground, as New England is a summer playground. I know a man who is supposed to live in Baltimore, but he spends his winters in Florida and his summers in New England, so he only lives in Baltimore a few weeks in between.

The first white people who came to America came to Florida, because they had been told there was a fountain of youth there. The fountain of youth was supposed to be a spring which was said to have magic powers. It was believed if old people bathed in it or drank its water they would become young again. But no one has ever found a fountain of youth in Florida or anywhere else, though many old people after they have spent the winter in Florida say they feel young again.

But not everybody in Florida plays all winter long. Many have to work. They have to run the hotels for the people who do come to Florida to play. And a great many others are busy raising “fresh early vegetables” to ship to the cold Northern States, where they would have only canned or frozen vegetables during the winter otherwise. Just as there is a top time, a kite time, a football time, and a baseball time, there used to be certain times or seasons for certain fruits and vegetables; but in most of Florida it is so warm they seldom or never have frost or snow or ice, so they can raise fruits and vegetables the year round. Farmers ship the vegetables they raise out of season to other States, so that people in the North can now have fresh strawberries at Christmas, and asparagus too, and lettuce and radishes every month in the year.