A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



like the old woman who lived in a shoe, sur 

 rounded by my brood, all clamouring. It was my 

 heroic duty to starve them to death. 



But such is the gentle efficacy of the gold cure 

 under the autumn leaves that if one will only 

 stay in the sanitarium of outdoors long enough 

 and keep still and listen, he will begin to see 

 some things more clearly. I was trying to think 

 of a similitude that would convey to you some 

 idea of those kindly intimations that are made by 

 the external world when one is thoroughly recep 

 tive, and I recalled a trivial incident which had 

 for me at the time a peculiar eloquence. Charlie 

 and I had passed the winter resolutely in that 

 hut, growing very intimate indeed, and spending 

 many precious hours huddling over our wood 

 fire during the long nights when the storms 

 raged and the hut creaked and trembled. We 

 had been very brave, I am sure, to have stood it 

 out, but the winter was long, and we were wait 

 ing and pining for the spring. The days and 

 weeks crawled sluggishly along. We counted 

 them regularly on the calendar, and watched with 

 childish eagerness that receding; sunshine on the 



O 



wall which was an index of the solstice. We 

 longed for the end of it all. One night I opened 

 the window to fasten the shutter. I think it was 

 in April. It was very still, and I heard the first 

 faint peep from the milldam. Such weak, tim 

 orous, thin little elfin voices, peep, peep. But 

 there was a keen, arrowy heralding in the note. 

 The earth was stirring. I called Charlie. &quot;What 



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