n8 



where dew and fairies are plenty ; and here 

 are sycamore leaves as wide as your two 

 "hands. Pin a mat of them together with 

 their own leaf -stalks, bend a willow, twig 

 about the edge, and heap it with berries half 

 as long as your finger and meltingly sweet. 

 Then wreath the basket about with yellow 

 love vine and feathery grasses, set it out in 

 the dew to-night, and morning will show you 

 that the day of miracles is not wholly past. 



Drink of the Fox Spring before you leave 

 it. There is no such water in three coun- 

 ties. You may use the ancient gourd that 

 hangs on the root above it. If you are wise, 

 though, you will lie all along the cool brink 

 of it, and let the living water lave your lips ; 

 or else kneel, gather it in your scooped 

 palms, and drink and drink the nectar of 

 the wood-sprites. 



The stream is delightfully vagrant. It 

 bends, turns, and doubles upon itself in each 

 half-mile. The bluffs alternate with curious 

 regularity. The next one faces south-by- 

 east. There you find always the first he- 

 paticas. All winter its big, red-brown leaves 

 curl and cling to each clefted rock to break 

 in late January, or by St. Valentine's at lat- 

 est, into wreathy stars white, paly pink, or 

 blue, or purple. 



