8 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



To me, as to all of us, it is dear also for 

 its own sake. This season I returned to it 

 alone, with no walking mate, I mean to 

 say. He was to join me later, but for eight 

 or ten days I was to follow the road by my- 

 self. At night I must make my own forecast 

 of the weather and lay out my own morrow. 



The first day was one of the good ones, 

 fair and still. As I came out upon the 

 piazza before breakfast and looked up at 

 Lafayette, a solitary vireo was phrasing 

 sweetly from the bushes on one side of the 

 house, and two or three vesper sparrows 

 were remembering the summer from the open 

 fields on the other side. It was the 22d of 

 September, and by this time the birds knew 

 how to appreciate a day of brightness and 

 warmth. 



Seeing them in such a mood, I determined 

 to spend the forenoon in their society. I 

 would take the road to Sinclair's Mills, a 

 woodsy jaunt, yet not too much in the forest, 

 always birdy from one end to the other. 



" This is living ! " I found myself repeat- 

 ing aloud, as I went up the longish hill to 

 the plateau above Gale Kiver, on the Beth- 



