136 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



by. Earth lover like myself it journeys ever 

 close to her crust, moving with a queer jerky 

 flight and often alighting on the grass or on a 

 log or chip, seldom on a flower or shrub. 



A new song made by an old friend strikes my 

 ear. It is the carol of the male chewink, and 

 differs widely from the well known note of this 

 bird as made in late autumn or early spring 

 when it is scratching for beetles or seeds about 

 the margins of an old brush pile or in the dead 

 leaves which then cover the ground in the dense 

 thickets hereabouts. This time the bird is high 

 above the ground and with head in air is pour- 

 ing forth his melody in a brief song of three or 

 four syllables. It cannot be expressed in let- 

 ters, but is far more resonant and charming 

 than the well known "che-wink. " 



In my tent yard is a small bed of ashes 

 mingled with which are a few pieces of char 

 coal. These are the remnants of fires I made 

 before my stone furnace was completed. Un- 

 less bodily removed here will they remain for 

 centuries. The ashes in a few years will be- 

 come so blended with the grains of earth as to 

 be invisible, but here they will still be, the min- 

 eral compounds of the maple wood I used in 

 cooking. Charcoal is one of the most indestruc- 

 tible forms of matter. A nearly pure carbon 

 it resists for scores of decades the action of air, 



