A COOL, GREEN NOOK. 81 



growth of waving trees — beech, white and black 

 birches, maple, and chestnut — in refreshing 

 and delightful confusion. The stream babbled 

 and murmured at my side as I walked slowly 

 down, peering in every bush for nests, and at 

 last I parted the branches like a curtain and 

 stepped within. It was a cool green solitude, a 

 shrine, one of nature's most enchanting nooks, 

 sacred to dreams and birds and — woodchucks, 

 one of which sat straight up and looked solemnly 

 at me out of his great brown eyes. 



I sat on the low-growing limb of a tree, and 

 was rocked by the wind outside. I forgot my 

 object. What did it matter that I should find 

 my blue jay? Was it worth while to go on? 

 Was anything worth while, indeed, except to 

 dream and muse, lulled by the music of the 

 " laughing water " ? Ah! if one were a poet ! 



Then the birds came. A cat-bird first, with 

 witching low song, eying me closely with that 

 calm, dark eye of his, the while he poured it out 

 from a shrub, 



" Like dripping- water falling' slow 

 Round mossy rocks, in music rare ; " 



a vireo, repeating over and over his few notes in 

 tireless warble; high up in the maple across 

 the chasm, a sweet- voiced goldfinch singing his 

 soul away outside; and lastly, a robin, who 

 broke the charm by a peremptory demand to 



