128 BY-WAYS A ND BIRD-NO TS. 



summer, with mere shelter from dew if any fall, 

 are all one needs for healthful rest. 



Our bower among the reeds caught that 

 gentle current of air which nearly always flows 

 with the way of a river, and we were rarely dis 

 turbed by gnats or mosquitoes. There were 

 no dangerous wild beasts, very few poisonous 

 snakes, and, of course, nothing else to make 

 us fearful. 



But we were not idle dreamers. We had in 

 view a definite object, toward which all our 

 studies and labors pointed. Alas, the cataclys- 

 mal years which soon came swept all away ! 

 The best that can be gathered from fragment 

 ary remnants and vivid recollections is a sort 

 of dreamy pleasure in somewhat living over 

 again those days and nights of tranquil green 

 wood life. A little of science and a great deal 

 of nature we found out. We learned the ways 

 of the fish, the birds, the bees, the winds, the 

 clouds, the flowers. We translated the mean 

 ing of stream-songs and leaf-murmurs. In the 

 Palace of Reeds we knew utter freedom based 

 on older law than magna charta or any declara 

 tion of rights. When one is a supple boy in the 

 wildwood, healthy, happy, strong, with a long 

 bow in his hands and old romance all through 

 him, he is free as the winds and birds. Add to 

 this a strong purpose, an aim far ahead, and 

 what would you have more ? 



Our indoor days, if those spent in the Palace 

 may be so called, would have appeared, to a 

 world-wise onlooker, somewhat tame ; but to 

 a poet they would have revealed the labors of 

 sincere, earnest souls, feeling their way through 

 youth s morning-rnist to the clear light. 



I remember one hot May day, too sultry for 



