THE PROPERTY THAT WE CALL OURS. 

 I remember how, as a boy, I used to long for a watch-chain, and how once Uncle Eb 

 hung his upon my coat, and said I could "call it mine." So it goes all through life. We 

 are the veriest children, and there is nothing one may really own. He may call it his for 

 a little while, just to satisfy him. The whole matter of deeds and titles had become now 

 a kind of baby's play. You may think you own the land, and you pass on; but there it is, 

 while others, full of the same illusion, take your place.— Irving Bacheller in "Eben Holders 

 Last Day A-Ftshing." 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



EDUCATION AND RECREATION 



VOL II 



DECEMBER, 1909 



No. 9 



"Thrushwood," Home of Irving Bacheller 



BY EDWARD F. BIGELOW, SOUND BEACH, CONNECTICUT 



BEN HOLDEN" is a true 

 love story that has touched 

 the hearts of lovers as no 

 other like story has ever 

 done. It is more than a 

 story. It is a rhapsody, a 

 paean, an oratorio of love 

 — the love of the woods. 

 Therein many paths lead to the 

 woods, and their hilarious, joyous, 

 gloomy, crackling', weird, mysterious, 

 thrilling trilling phases. The author, 

 Irving Bacheller, is a master of the en- 

 tire keyboard of the music of the woods 

 and brings out many strains, some simple 

 as the phrases of the white throated 

 sparrow, some big, thunderous, Wag- 

 nerian as the song of the water-fall in 

 "Silas Strong." 



On the first page of "Eben Holden," 

 the very "small boy in a big basket 

 on the back of a jolly old man" makes 

 his first observation in the fields and 

 woods. Our first acquaintance with 

 him is nearness to nature : 



"He saw wonderful things, day after 

 day, looking down at the green fields or 

 peering into the gloomy reaches of the 

 wood; and he talked about them." 



The author would have the young 

 folks not only talk about and think 

 about the woods, but he would have 

 them rejoice — play, shout and sing as 

 the trees do : 



"The woods were merry with otn 

 shouts, and, shortly one could hear the 

 heart-beat of the maples in the sound- 

 ing bucket. It was the reveille of 

 spring. Towering trees shook down 

 the gathered storms of snow and felt 

 for the sunlight. The arch and shanty 

 were repaired, the great iron kettle was 

 scoured and lifted to its place, and then 

 came the boiling. It was a great, an 

 inestimable privilege to sit on the robes 

 of faded fur, in the shanty, and hear the 

 fire roaring under the kettle and smell 

 the sweet odor of the boiling sap. Uncle 

 Eb minded the shanty and the fire and 

 the woods rang with his merry songs." 



Copyright 1909 by The Agatsiz Association. Arcadia, Sound Beach. Conn. 



