THE MINK'S HUNTING GROUND 



eaters of our New England woods, 

 where winter's cold howls over their 

 heads, but does not descend, and where 

 summer's heat rims them round, but 

 hardly dares dabble its toes in their cool 

 retreat. 



Progress has built its houses on the 

 hills about them, freight trains two miles 

 away roar so mightily that the quaggy 

 depths tremble with the vibrations, and 

 you may sit with the arethusas in mossy 

 muck and hear the honk of the auto- 

 mobile mingling with that of the wild 

 geese as they both go by in spring. Yet 

 the one makes as much impression on the 

 land and its inhabitants as the other. The 

 lotus eaters know not Ulysses; if he 

 wants them for his ships of progress he 

 must capture them by force and tie them 

 beneath the rowers' benches, else they 

 return. Even the temperature of those 

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