34 WINTER SUNSHINE 



the good fortune of all walkers, and feel like join- 

 ing myself to every tramp that comes along. I am 

 jealous of the clergyman I read about the other day 

 who footed it from Edinburgh to London, as poor 

 Effie Deans did, carrying her shoes in her hand most 

 of the way, and over the ground that rugged Ben 

 Jonson strode, larking it to Scotland, so long ago. 

 I read with longing of the pedestrian feats of college 

 youths, so gay and light-hearted, with their coarse 

 shoes on their feet and their knapsacks on their 

 backs. It would have been a good draught of the 

 rugged cup to have walked with Wilson the orni- 

 thologist, deserted by his companions, from Niagara 

 to Philadelphia through the snows of winter. I 

 almost wish that I had been born to the career of a 

 German mechanic, that I might have had that de- 

 licious adventurous year of wandering over my coun- 

 try before I settled down to work. I think how 

 much richer and firmer-grained life would be to me 

 if I could journey afoot through Florida and Texas, 

 or follow the windings of the Platte or the Yellow- 

 stone, or stroll through Oregon, or browse for a sea- 

 son about Canada. In the bright inspiring days of 

 autumn I only want the time and the companion to 

 walk back to the natal spot, the family nest, across 

 two States and into the mountains of a third. 

 What adventures we would have by the way, what 

 hard pulls, what prospects from hills, what specta- 

 cles we would behold of night and day, what pas- 

 sages with dogs, what glances, what peeps into win- 

 dows, what characters we should fall in with, and 



