124 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



seventy feet from the edge of the bank I finally 

 found the fish and was again a boy. With him 

 topping the string I wended my way camp ward, 

 reaching there in time to hear the first vesper 

 call of the whippoorwill. Supper cooked and 

 eaten I was in bed by nine and slept the sleep 

 of the just. 



Thursday, June 15. Mid-June, a glorious 

 sunrise, a clear sky, a heavy dew ! Mid-June 

 and the first wild roses blooming for me a short 

 distance up the valley. Mid-June and the peace 

 and quiet of the old pasture my chief inherit- 

 ance for the day. 



This morn I gather my fruit from the lap of 

 earth. Onto it, ever ready to catch them, have 

 fallen during the night hundreds of luscious 

 black mulberries and I vie with the early birds 

 and squirrels in gathering them. 



"A feast to the gods do the berries bestow, 

 To the bird up above and the poet below." 



A full quart I get in eight minutes, picked up, 

 not from sand or dust, but from the clean, dew- 

 washed sward of blue-grass. Fish from the 

 flowing stream shall be the meat and stewed 

 mulberries the dessert of my noonday meal. 

 Happy he who is a successful forager in the 

 wilderness. 



While eating my breakfast a yellow-billed 

 cuckoo or rain crow, long, slender, cleaving the 



