THE BAPTISM OF DIRT 



I was not at all sure. There was something 

 pensive in it, I thought. It was as if Nature 

 were holding her breath. &quot; I never could under- 



O 



stand,&quot; I said, &quot;why the banquet of the year 

 should be tinged with solemnity.&quot; 



&quot; I can only offer a suggestion,&quot; remarked the 

 Doctor. &quot; All the other months of the season 

 are obtrusive and jocund with incessant prepara 

 tion. July and August burst into insistence with 

 the pressure of life. Everything, from the tiniest 

 spark of animation to the highest form of animal 

 beauty and instinct, made those summer months 

 a workshop. They hammered, and wove, and 

 spun, and built, and multiplied, and rounded it 

 all up completely in perfect obedience, singing, 

 and chirping, and warbling, and flashing to get 

 it all done. They have finished the work and 

 gone away. It is impossible for a man to come 

 face to face with this glad consummation and rest 

 without feeling some kind of self-reproach. 

 There is something that he has not finished. 

 A mocking voice tells him he never will. That 

 is what Pascal meant when he said that the 

 superiority of a man to a tree is that the tree 

 does not know that it is miserable, and Emerson 

 somewhere says that man would not love Nature 

 so childishly if he were good.&quot; 



Then the Doctor pulled up suddenly, as he 

 always did when he found himself getting preachy, 

 and said : &quot; There is a sawmill a mile or two up 

 this stream. There may be hospitality and bread 

 and milk there.&quot; 



165 



