how beauty of tangled thicket and room for 

 gathering of bloom and bird are growing rarer ; 

 for are not the straggling fences rotting down 

 and giving place to fences of wire, which leave 

 no least protection from grazing herd or flock, 

 or tramping foot, for brier, or clump of grasses 

 or blackberry, with its arch of vine and sweet, 

 blinding surprise of snow-white blossoms? But 

 all this shelter the railroad supplies, and calls to 

 the homeless garden of nature, " I will give you 

 room," and makes good this cordial invitation. 

 On either side of the track is a goodly breadth 

 given over to nature. A ditch dug in build- 

 ing the road-bed gives place for water to stand, 

 and where water stands there is invitation for 

 flag and cat-tail and swamp-grasses ; and the 

 embankment gives privilege for the wild rose to 

 hold tryst with the wild bee, and makes banks 

 leaning south, where in the new springtime 

 violets may stand in pools of blue, and grasses 

 may grow, unafraid of the lowing herd. If you, 

 friend, have never known how dear a shelter the 

 barren railroad affords nature's refugees, pray 

 you give the matter heed. 



Five miles of invitation of perfumed June 

 lie before me. The last robin of my journey 

 calls with its flute-note from the fringes of the 

 village. He hugs the town, I fear me, over- 

 much, and I tremble lest his morals become 

 corrupted ; ,but he eyes me from his barn-roof 

 with a curious look, as if commiserating the 

 moneyless traveler who must plod along the 

 track instead of riding on the train or going on 

 a robin's speeding wings. If men are not small 

 folks in the bird's eyes, I miss my guess. They 

 have a right to feel aristocrats, who have wings 

 and know how to fly. The skies are fair high- 

 ways for treading; and I piously envy all winged 

 things. Sometimes, I fear I love the country 



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