TOUCHES OF NATURE 47 
of essentially the same material, — woody fibres 
scraped from old rails and boards. And there is 
news on it, too, if one could make out the characters. 
When I stopped the entrance with cotton, there 
was no commotion or excitement, as there would 
have been in the case of yellow-jackets. Those 
outside went to pulling, and those inside went to 
pushing and chewing. Only once did one of the 
outsiders come down and look me suspiciously in 
the face, and inquire very plainly what my business 
might be up there. I bowed my head, being at the 
top of a twenty-foot ladder, and had nothing to say. 
The cotton was chewed and moistened about the 
edges till every fibre was loosened, when the mass 
dropped. But instantly the entrance was made 
smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of stop- 
ping it more difficult. 
IV 
There are those who look at Nature from the 
standpoint of conventional and artificial life, — from 
parlor windows and through gilt-edged poems, — the 
sentimentalists. At the other extreme are those 
who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown 
part of her, and look away from her toward the other 
class, — the backwoodsmen and pioneers, and all 
rude and simple persons. Then there are those in 
whom the two are united or merged, —the great 
poets and artists. In them the sentimentalist is 
corrected and cured, and the hairy and taciturn 
frontiersman has had experience to some purpose. 
