WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 



A slab is the first cut from the log, and the bark goes 

 with it. It is like the first cut from the loaf, which 

 we call the crust, and which the children reject, but 

 which we older ones often prefer. I wanted to take a 

 fresh cut of life, — something that had the bark on, 

 or, if you please, that was like a well-browned and 

 hardened crust. After three years I am satisfied with 

 the experiment. Life has a different flavor here. It 

 is reduced to simpler terms; its complex equations 

 all disappear. The exact value of x may still elude 

 me, but I can press it hard ; I have shorn it of 

 many of its disguises and entanglements. 



When I went into the woods the robins went with 

 me, or rather they followed close. As soon as a space 

 of ground was cleared and the garden planted, they 

 were on hand to pick up the worms and insects, and 

 to superintend the planting of the cherry-trees : three 

 pairs the first summer, and more than double that 

 number the second. In the third, their early morn- 

 ing chorus was almost as marked a feature as it is 

 about the old farm homesteads. The robin is no her- 

 mit : he likes company ; he likes the busy scenes of 

 the farm and the village; he likes to carol to listen- 

 ing ears, and to build his nest as near your dwelling 

 as he can. Only at rare intervals do I find a real 

 sylvan robin, one that nests in the woods, usually by 

 still waters, remote from human habitation. In such 

 places his morning and evening carol is a welcome 

 surprise to the fisherman or camper-out. It is like a 



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