Pleiades take a stroll over my farm looking at it intently ; but what they 

 see justifies a long journey. The sun walks on the south line of my 

 farm in winter, and straight across my farm in summer. A public high- 

 way goes along the east and just the same on the west of said real estate, 

 and on the north I run a domestic highway, which is, I may say, how- 

 ever, "eloquent with beauty." Nothing keeps away from this farm. 

 This, I think, creditable to the place for instance, the road on the west 

 crowds rather rudely on my ground, ostensibly because the hill is so 

 steep, the road must make the ascent by angles; actually because I 

 have such inviting shade that the road panting hot in long summer 

 days urges its tired way under my spreading trees to rest like a school- 

 boy tired with climbing. 



More things than I, love my farm, so that I conclude good taste is 

 really prevalent. The sportsmen come to my wooded hill, though I like 

 not the art of killing. But my neighbors do have the courtesy to come 

 and send a cloud of powder smoke along my fields or in my 

 woods, and a flock of quails whirrs by on startled wing, and 

 more 's the pity sometimes one flutters out of his com- 

 pany and falls dying in the grass, or on the leaves. The 

 rabbit frequents my cornfield, which I take as a compli- 

 ^ment, though he is a costly visitor, because he persists in 

 dining off the bark of my apple orchard, and I have a scuffle 

 all winter long with him and his to teach them manners; 

 but any way, all hospitality is costly, and the hospitable man must not sulk 

 if his bills are heavy when his friends are many. Friends are cheap 

 whatever they cost. I would not have my farm deserted of these neigh- 

 borly folk, squirrel and jay and quail and rabbit and crow. Burns 

 was right, I think. The mouse is worth his board. From such a 

 tenant we lose a little and gain a great deal. What were a hundred 

 fields in their loss of grain matched with Burns's poem on the 

 "Mousie," which fairly aches with sympathy for the beasties of the field? 

 I confess to a love for the hawk with his swift shadow and his bold flight 

 rich in the ecstasy of motion ; and when I hear the owl call piteously 

 through the dark in the back lands, along the fringes of the hills in the 

 dark woods, I like him too. He is not mannerly, nor cordial. He is 

 not even commonly sociable. I have found him a sort of morose, sullen 

 creature, but he has a touch of sadness in his voice, and doubtless may 

 have his own family troubles, which may account for his behavior 

 ("Judge not, lest ye be judged"). These folks are all my neighbors and 



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