WOODLAND PATHS 



pond is full of them, black ducks and 

 sheldrake, quacking and whistling back 

 and forth, sometimes forty of them in 

 the air at once, and taking no notice of 

 the wanderer on the bank. It seems to 

 be their jubilee day as well as that of the 

 birds on shore. 



Thus by way of the long trail teeming 

 with spring life I reach the enchanted 

 country of the wood roads. Here are 

 no pastures reclaimed, no ancient cellar 

 holes to show the path of the pioneer. 

 Woodland it was when the first English- 

 man came to Cape Cod; woodland it re- 

 mains to-day. Somewhere in its depths 

 the barred owls are nesting, and I hear 

 the shrill paean of a hawk as he harries 

 the distant hillside. But for the most 

 part there is a gentle silence, a dignified 

 quiet that befits the solitude. It is the 

 hush of the elder years dwelling in places 



78 



