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 bluejay? 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 

 Kound mossy rocks, in music rare ; " 



a vireo, repeating over arid 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 robm, who 

 broke the charm by a peremptory demand to 



