SUMMER 



CHAPTER I 



THE SUMMER AFIELD 



THE word summer, being interpreted, means 

 vacation ; and vacation, being interpreted, 

 means so many things that I have not space 

 in this book to name them. Yet how can there be a 

 vacation without mountains, or seashore, or the fields, 

 or the forests days out of doors ? My ideal vaca- 

 tion would have to be spent in the open ; and this 

 book, the larger part of it, is the record of one of 

 my summer vacations the vacation of the summer 

 of 1912. That was an ideal vacation, and along with 

 my account of it I wish to give you some hints on 

 how to make the most of your summer chance- to 

 tramp the fields and woods. 



For the real lover of nature is a tramp ; not the 

 kind of tramp that walks the railroad-ties and carries 

 his possessions in a tomato-can, but one who follows 

 the cow-paths to the fields, who treads the rabbit- 

 roads in the woods, watching the ways of the wild 

 things that dwell in the tree-tops, and in the deepest 

 burrows under ground. 



