Qti 



81 



INTRODUCTION 



THE writer of this book has four children of 

 his own, and not so very long ago (he can re- 

 member it) he was a child himself, and roamed 

 the fields, as still he does, with all the child's love of 

 freedom and joy in the companionship of wild things 



wild lives, wild winds, wild places, and the wild 

 hours along the edge of dusk and dawn. And if hei 

 has any right to ask other children than his own to \ 

 tramp the wild places with him through the pages of J. 

 this book it is because he is still a child and cannot j 

 outgrow his love of Saturdays and skates and deep [ 

 woods and the ways of the wild folk, great and small ; - 

 and because, again, he has tramped the wild places 

 (for his home is in the woods) more than most of his 

 readers, perhaps, and tramped them the seasons round 



stormy nights and lazy autumn days, and summer 

 and winter; and he has seen only what his readers 

 have seen, no doubt, the ordinary things, but he has 

 often felt, as all children do at times feel, strange deep 

 things, things more wonderful than anybody ever saw. 

 And yet the ordinary things, ordinary only because 

 we have not watched them and thought about them, 

 are really what we are going out to see; and we are 

 going out in an ordinary way upon our two feet, 



