Preface. 



"Be ye satisfied with little things" should be 

 the adage or precept set before the eyes of every 

 one who in the woods seeks fancies for his 

 brain, contentment for his soul. The little 

 things of nature, her wayside weeds, her birds 

 and butterflies, her boulders large and pebbles 

 small, her odors sweet, her songs of winds and 

 rippling waters, her grasses green and posies 

 gay, these and many others she offered unto me 

 as themes when with her I sojourned. With a 

 tent as shelter I spent on three occasions a week 

 or two with her in western Indiana. Through 

 her old pastures and along her streams I wan- 

 dered free and wrote of these her little offer- 

 ings ; wrote also at times of that earth to which 

 my dust belongs and of t]je sun, her ruler. 

 What I wrote was mine, free from all influence 

 or bias of other human brain, and as such, in 

 the words there penned, I offer it to you. 



Thousands of men, now toilers in the cities, 

 were country-bred. For a week or two each 

 summer most of them can get away. Then 

 should they to the country hie and live again 

 the simple life. There can they sleep with a 

 canvas for a canopy, walk far and wide with 



