ing walnuts under my trees with his hands dyed with walnut juice, as 

 mine were when I was a boy; and a bluejay is stealing my acorns and 

 hiding them (he is a merry thief who steals for the love of stealing, for 

 he forgets where he has hid his plunder) ; and blackbirds are making 

 tumult in the tree-tops, talking all at once, and though I do not profess 

 familiarity with their dialect I catch enough to know they are planning 

 to leave my woods, for which I am sorry enough. Now they take long 

 gyrations and swift, framing a black cloud like gathering tempest, and 

 then settle down with a choppy kind of laughter. To-night they will go 



to sleep in the tree-tops, but in the morning they will be gone ; for in the 

 night, down some long stream's windings, they will have haled to a sunlit 

 land where, instead of fallen leaves, flowers perfume the air. Than 

 these night migrations of the birds nature has no stranger doing and no 

 sadder. 



And I trudge along the highway like a tramp; but the moment I set 

 foot on my farm I strut like a turkey en route to thanksgiving. I am 

 here. I walked here. I knew I was walking when I was sitting in the 

 leaf-fall and dreaming awhile. I am here. Let turnips and corn-shocks, 

 planted trees and those God planted, bushes frowsy as an unkempt head, 



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