A MOUNTAIN-SIDE RAMBLE. 171 



trees, a few of them still in good trim, but 

 the greater number decrepit after years of 

 buffeting by mountain storms. A phcebe 

 sat quietly on the ridge-pole, and a chipper 

 was singing from the orchard. What knew 

 they of time, or of time's mutations ? The 

 house might grow old, the house and the 

 trees ; but if the same misfortune ever be- 

 falls phoabes and sparrows, we are, fortu- 

 nately, none the wiser. To human eyes 

 they are always young and fresh, like the 

 buttercups that bespangled the grass before 

 me, or like the sun that shone brightly upon 

 the tranquil scene. 



Turning away from the house and the 

 grassy field about it, I got over a stone wall 

 into a pasture fast growing up to wood : 

 spruces, white pines, red pines, paper 

 birches, and larches, with a profusion of 

 meadow-sweet sprinkled everywhere among 

 them. A nervous flicker started at my ap- 

 proach, stopped for an instant to reconnoi- 

 tre, and then made off in haste. A hermit 

 thrush was singing, and the bird that is 

 called the " preacher " who takes no sum- 

 mer vacation, but holds forth in " God's first 

 temple " for the seven days of every week 



