APRIL. 79 



fragment of paradise lost, my perverse disposition asserts 

 itself and I quote from the depressing pages of " Peirce 

 on the Weather." Of one not yet forgotten April, he re- 

 cords : " A cold, boisterous northwester . . . made every- 

 thing tremble and shiver. . . . The blustering snow-squalls 

 which followed would have been more suitable for Janu- 

 ary. . . . Ice formed on several nights, half an inch thick, 

 which destroyed all the buds, and almost every green 

 thing." Nothing quite so bad as this, lately, it is true ; 

 but what has been may be ; and arbutus gatherers that 

 had hung their wraps upon the trees, shivered as I read 

 this and thought it was growing cold again. I must ad- 

 mit that I enjoyed their discomfort ; and let me ask what 

 is the origin of that mental condition which prompts one 

 to do these things ? There is no known animal ancestor 

 from which it could be derived. 



A kindly disposed critic has suggested that I visit 

 " the islands of the Niagara River, or even the fields along 

 its shore," instead of persistently " paddling among bull- 

 frogs on Big Bird Creek." I have been along the shores 

 of the river named, and lingered spell-bound about the 

 falls ; but my experience was that of my own insignifi- 

 cance. If at home at all, it is by the unromantic, quiet 

 creeks, beloved of bull-frogs, tenanted by turtles and 

 snakes, decked with unassuming bloom, and graced by 

 the unpretentious songs of the sparrows and the wren. 

 These, my constant companions from my youth up, filled 

 my heart long years ago ; and I stand in awe of scenes or 

 creatures more wonderful or mysterious. 



Leaving a glorious flood upon the meadows, with its 

 untold wealth of suggestiveness, I took my friendly critic's 

 advice, choosing certain promising days of April, 1887, 

 and sought, with some misgiving, a new pasture. I am 

 free to confess that I long reveled in the heaped-up 

 bounties of the wide wilderness into which I plunged. 



