234 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



six weeks or less will it start southward, bound 

 for a home where no frost will chill its muscles, 

 where insect life is ever present. Bathing as it 

 goes in the clearest of crystal springs, dreaming 

 dreams of mating and of nesting days, uttering 

 low chuckling notes of pleasure when an at- 

 tractive morsel of food is caught, saving not for 

 a future but taking each day only sufficient for 

 its needs, shuddering not at any thought of a 

 hereafter, which never was or never will be, be- 

 set by no creeds, bound by no laws, free as the 

 air through which it wings its way, on it will go 

 to the great south world where the sun ever 

 shines, where exists its heaven and its winter 

 haven here on earth. 



Monday, July 17. The end has come; the end 

 of another happy outing. Soon shall I "fold 

 my tent like the Arab and as silently steal 

 away. ' ' A fine camp site have I had, good fish- 

 ing, excellent shade, poor hunting, plenty of 

 marmot shooting, blackberries galore. To-day 

 the peace, the calm, the quietude of nature 

 doth surround me. To-morrow the roar, the 

 rumble, the jar, the clanging bells, the shrieking 

 whistles of art will take their place. Here time 

 wags on unmeasured, and only by my journal 

 do I know the day of week and month. There 

 even the seconds are counted as they span off 

 the hours of toiling thousands. 



