WALKING AS AN ART 



beating the ether vigorously, as his body keeps 

 in one place over the field. The mouse creep- 

 ing about is in immediate danger. That 

 graven image on the side hill of the pasture 

 is a woodchuck. He is watching the scenery 

 lest any of it should slip away. He will 

 squat in that same position for hours if he is 

 undisturbed. Contemplation is the chief end 

 and aim of the woodchuck. 



As we come over, and start to cross the 

 meadow a half-dozen bobolinks are pirouet- 

 ting and tumbling in the air, drunk with the 

 wine of summer and riotous over a wilderness 

 of clover-blossoms. They have routed the 

 red-winged blackbirds from the rushes and are 

 undisputed masters of the field a tipsy crew 

 of aerial Bacchanalians, with nothing to do 

 but rise on fluttering wings and sift melody 

 through the sieves of sunlight that are waver- 

 ing above the grasses. Such a madcap, dis- 

 reputable band of joyous songsters ! Such a 

 disregard of all theories of moon-filtered pas- 

 sion of nightingale, or sky-flung music of 

 English lark! Here is the bubbling over of 

 the beaker of summer at last the plash and 

 tinkle of raindrops on glass the gurgle of 



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