88 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



hydrogen, sung the same song as they rippled 

 over the boulders before me. Over the boulders 

 of many other streams have they also rippled 

 and gurgled. For through countless ages past 

 the sun also their master hath pulled them, 

 times uncountable, up from that sea, away from 

 their God of gravity. On the wings of his winds 

 have they been borne. Each time, however, a 

 great struggle ensued. Each time did gravity 

 conquer and pull them down to crust of earth 

 and along the seams of her old face to the rim 

 of that great bowl, the sea. 



How widely acquainted these waters must be. 

 Here one month, there another, do they travel. 

 Could they but speak they would doubtless say 

 to some boulder gray: " Hello, old friend, how 

 are you to-day? I have no time to pause and 

 chat for my master calls and I must obey. I 

 will see you again in a few years from now. 

 Till then, good cheer." 



On my way back to the tent, while reclining 

 motionless at the foot of a steep wooded slope, 

 I noted a chipmunk forty feet or more in front. 

 Moving in short leaps, he came slowly and 

 gradually towards me. Once he stopped, sat 

 erect and washed his face as does a cat. He 

 finally reached a chunk not two feet distant and 

 I thought was going to leap from it to me. 

 However he must have caught my body scent as 

 he paused and looked at me for a full minute, 



