WOODS MEDICINE 131 



the leaves as all four of his, he hears you coming 

 and turns quietly down some alley or in at some bur- 

 row and allows you to pass on. 



Louder than your step in the woods is the sound 

 of your voice. Perhaps there is no other noise so 

 far-reaching, so alarming, so silencing in the woods 

 as the human voice. When your tongue begins, all 

 the other tongues cease. Songs stop as by the snap 

 of a violin string; chatterings cease ; whisperings 

 end mute are the woods and empty as a tomb, 

 except the wind be moving aloft in the trees. 



Three things all the animals can do supremely 

 well : they can hear well ; they can see motion well ; 

 they can wait well. 



If you would know how well an animal can wait, 

 scare Dr. Wood Chuck into his office, then sit down 

 outside and wait for him to come out. It would be a 

 rare and interesting thing for you to do. No one has 

 ever done it yet, I believe ! Establish a world's record 

 for keeping still ! But you should scare him in at the 

 beginning of your summer vacation so as to be sure 

 you have all the waiting-time the state allows : for you 

 may have to leave the hole in September and go back 

 to school. 



When the doctor wrote the prescription for this 

 medicine, " No moving for an hour," he was giving 

 you a very small, a homeopathic dose of patience, as 

 you can see; for an hour at a time, every wood- 

 watcher knows, will often be only a waste of time, 



