THE SEARCH AND FINDING 



memories; the sighing of the boughs in the 

 wind brings a tender murmur from the farthest 

 days of childhood, when leaves rustled all the 

 long summer at the nurse's window. Bird- 

 nesting boyhood comes again to sit astride the 

 limbs — to hunt for slippery elm, or the fra- 

 grant leaves of young wintergreen, or the aro- 

 matic roots of sassafras. 



This scarred bole, so straight and true, re- 

 minds of still larger ones in the forest of Fon- 

 tainebleau; the chestnuts recall the broad- 

 leaved ones of the Apennines; the hemlocks 

 bring to memory the kindred sapin of the 

 Juras, under whose shade I sat upon an August 

 day, years ago, panting with the heat, and 

 looking off upon the yellow plains which 

 stretch beyond the old French town of Poligny, 

 and upon the shadows of clouds, that flitted 

 over the far and "golden-sided" Burgundy. 



Next, the coveted place was to have its quota 

 of running water. It would be a very absurd 

 thing to go far to find reasons for the love of 

 a brook. There are practical ones of which 

 every farmer knows the force; and of which 

 every farmer's boy, who has ever driven a cow 

 to water, or wet a line in the eddies, could be 

 exponent. 



And in the romantic aspect of the matter, I 



13 



