160 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



rarely — a vesper sparrow sang a single 

 strain, or a far-away white-throat gave voice 

 across the meadow ; and once a passing hum- 

 ming-bird, a good singer with his wings, 

 stopped to probe the monk's-hood blossoms 

 in the garden patch. The best that can 

 be said of the matter is that for birds the 

 season was neither one thing nor another. 

 Lovers of field ornithology should come to 

 the mountains earlier or later, leaving Au- 

 gust to the crowd of common tourists, who 

 love nature, of course (who does n't in these 

 days ?), but only in the general ; who believe 

 with Walt Whitman — since it is not neces- 

 sary to read a poet in order to share his 

 opinions — that " you must not know too 

 much or be too precise or scientific about 

 birds and trees and flowers and water-craft ; 

 a certain free margin, and even vagueness — 

 even ignorance, credulity — helping your 

 enjoyment of these things." 



Such a credulous en j oyer of beauty I 

 knew of, a few years ago, a summer dweller 

 at a mountain hotel closely shut in by the 

 forest on aU sides, with no grass near it ex- 

 cept a scanty plot of shaven lawn. Well, 



