6o Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



leave that to the womanly skill and taste of the 

 wife. Here is outdoor work for all odd hours, of 

 the most delightful and healthful kind; every stroke 

 of it is capital invested in beauty or beautified util- 

 ity. In a few years the cottage will be a gem on 

 which the pleased eye of the passer-by will rest. 

 This is exercise for body and rest for the mind. 

 Here are the conditions of health and vigor for 

 both. 



I console myself in my sympathy for these clean 

 and healthy, and according to their light, right- 

 doing wild animals, by looking up at the stars. 

 The Creator has made so many suns that are now 

 active, to say nothing of those which have died, 

 that there must be worlds adapted to animal life, 

 which in numbers are quite beyond the limits of 

 our computation. In many, perhaps most of those 

 worlds, the intellectual king-race is not a race of 

 carnivorous animals, like man. Such a race would 

 not be the enemies but the friends of the peaceful, 

 inferior tribes. What a delightful time the camp- 

 fire muser and his wife in the earth-world of Alpha 

 Cassiopeia must have! The doe brings her sweet 

 and innocent fawns, and leaves them under the 

 protection of Crusoe's rifle. The squirrel comes 

 down the tree with her little ones, and lays them in 

 the lap of Mrs. Crusoe, for her to fondle and 

 admire. Wherever men dwell the singing-birds 

 come for protection from the hawk. In that world 

 man is the only granivorous and frugivorous animal 



