AN ENCHANTING NOOK. 247 



four-footed pioneers till I reached the lower end 

 of the marsh that had kept me from entering on 

 the upper side. On its edge I placed my chair 

 and seated myself. 



It was an ideal retreat ; within call if help 

 were needed, yet a solitude it was plain no hu- 

 man being, in that land where (according to the 

 Prophet) every man, woman, and child is a 

 working bee, ever invaded ; 



" A leafy nook 

 Where wind never entered, nor branch ever shook," 



known only to my equine friends and to me. I 

 exulted in it ! No discoverer of a new land, no 

 stumbler upon a gold mine, was ever more ex- 

 hilarated over his find than I over my solitary 

 wild rose path. 



The tangle was composed of a varied growth. 

 There seemed to have been originally a strag- 

 gling row of low trees, chokecherry, peach, 

 and willow, which had been surrounded, over- 

 whelmed, and almost buried by a rich growth 

 of shoots from their own roots, bound and ce- 

 mented together by the luxuriant wild rose of 

 the West, which grows profusely everywhere it 

 can get a foothold, stealing up around and be- 

 tween the branches, till it overtops and fairly 

 smothers in blossoms a fair-sized oak or other 

 tree. Besides these were great ferns, or brakes, 

 three or four feet high, which filled up the edges 



