72 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



forever, they or their kind do roam. Food for 

 a little time they must have, shelter and warmth 

 in certain degree. Given these they can live, 

 but what is life to them if love be absent? So 

 away they sail on the wing through that ocean 

 of air, away and forever in search of a mate. 

 It has been thus from the beginning; so will it 

 be unto the end and why? 



Returning to camp at eleven o'clock I cooked 

 my dinner, then rigged up some fishing tackle 

 and went down alongside the spring near the 

 farm-house for bait. The season has been very 

 dry and the worms are few and mostly small. 

 The old farmer, my life-long friend, helped me 

 dig them; then down the roadway together we 

 trudged, down to the bridge and up on the other 

 side to the old baptizing hole or " burnt drift," 

 where forty years and more ago I used to catch 

 scores of sun-fish, suckers and goggle-eyes. Alas, 

 forty years have changed things there as much 

 as they have changed me. The old log that used 

 to lie a few feet out from and parallel to the 

 bank is gone. The bank itself has been cut 

 back a score of feet or more. No sign of drift ; 

 no goggle-eyes there to-day. Up to -the old 

 spring we went. It too was partially filled with 

 leaves and trash. The stone basin from which 

 I had quaffed many a cooling draught in days 

 of youth was wholly hidden. Nature had but 

 little of old to offer me here, so back to the 



