18 



mischief is. There is hope that he may now be driven out 

 with the others. Such a trust, however, has no firm ground 

 in the nature of the young animal. He darts from among 

 them and passes you with a long jump, when you are about 

 three steps off. To any but a good boy the juncture will seem 

 to call for forms of speech the use of which has been very 

 properly forbidden us. The calf is vanishing along the line of 

 rocks that lead to the most upper and northwest corner of the 

 lot. 



That calf must be let alone for a day or two ; and at the end 

 of that time I will tell any boy, that wishes to know it, of a 

 better way for setting out to begin with in bringing home those 

 calves from the lot. 



The plays of the children, also, and the employments within 

 doors of the housekeepers are affected almost as much by the 

 changing of the seasons. One who has not tried it can not 

 tell how great the difference is in these respects between life in 

 the country and in a large town ; or between that in a farmer's 

 house and any other, even in the country. ' The farmer and his 

 family are the only people that know how the promise has been 

 kept, that seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and 

 summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. 



There is a certain power of sympathy with nature that is 

 rarely if ever possessed, except by one who has lived long in 

 the midst of natural things, and had his home among them. 

 Men and women of culture, and with a good eye and a good 

 tongue, will come out into the country for an excursion of a 

 few weeks, and they will tell a pleasant story of what they 

 have seen, and write sparkling letters for the papers or the 

 magazine. But if they were never anything more than city 

 people, there will always be something wanting — a ground 

 flavor, which a short lying only on the turf will not give. 

 Nature herself is with them as a maiden may be with a lover 

 that comes to woo her ; she has many cheerful and sprightly 

 things that she will say ; but yet the ways that are most her 

 own, her happiest and home-like life, she will show only to the 

 family circle — the brothers and sisters who have grown up 



