i& UNDER THE TREES. 



old farmhouses have grown into the landscape, and 

 the hurrying road widens its course, and sometimes 

 makes a long detour, that it may unite these outly 

 ing folk with the great world. There stands the 

 old school-house, sacred to every traveler who has 

 learned that childhood is both a memory and a 

 prophecy of heaven. One pauses here, and hears, 

 in the unbroken stillness, the rush of feet that have 

 never grown weary with travel, and the clamor of 

 voices through which immortal youth still shouts to 

 the kindred hills and skies. Into those windows 

 nature throws all manner of invitations, and 

 through them she gets only glances of recognition 

 and longing. There are the fields, the woods, and 

 the hills in one perpetual rivalry of charm ; the 

 bird sings in the bough over the window, and on 

 still afternoons the brook calls and calls again. 

 Here one feels anew the eternal friendship between 

 childhood and Nature, and remembers that they only 

 can abide in that fellowship who carry into riper 

 years the self-forgetfulness, the sweet unconscious 

 ness, the open mind and heart of a child. 



