56 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



their spirit has never been broken, their 

 energies never paralyzed. Not many years 

 ago a public highway passed through them, 

 but it was at no time a tolerable road ; trees 

 fell across it, mud and limbs choked it up, 

 till finally travellers took the hint and went 

 around ; and now, walking along its deserted 

 course, I see only the footprints of coons, 

 foxes, and squirrels. 



Nature loves such woods, and places her 

 own seal upon them. Here she shows me 

 what can be done with ferns and mosses and 

 lichens. The soil is marrowy and full of in- 

 numerable forests. Standing in these fra- 

 grant aisles, I feel the strength of the veg- 

 etable kingdom, and am awed by the deep 

 and inscrutable processes of life going on so 

 silently about me. 



No hostile forms with axe or spud now 

 visit these solitudes. The cows have half- 

 hidden ways through them, and know where 

 the best browsing is to be had. In spring 

 the farmer repairs to their bordering of 

 maples to make sugar ; in July and August 

 women and boys from all the country about 

 penetrate the old Bark-peelings for raspber- 

 ries and blackberries ; and I know a youth 

 who wonderingly follows their languid stream 

 casting for trout. 



