My First Summer 



Mother Nature is too often spoken of as in 

 reality no mother at all. Yet how wisely, 

 sternly, tenderly she loves and looks after 

 her children in all sorts of weather and 

 wildernesses. The more I see of deer the 

 more I admire them as mountaineers. They 

 make their way into the heart of the 

 roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of 

 strength, through dense belts of brush and 

 forest encumbered with fallen trees and 

 boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, 

 and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty 

 and courage. Over nearly all the conti- 

 nent the deer find homes. In the Florida 

 savannas and hummocks, in the Canada 

 woods, in the far north, roaming over 

 mossy tundras, swimming lakes and rivers 

 and arms of the sea from island to island 

 washed with waves, or climbing rocky 

 mountains, everywhere healthy and able, 

 adding beauty to every landscape, a 

 truly admirable creature and great credit 

 to Nature. 



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