^^e (mi00in5 ^ootf) 



face. Her smile is ever in the open, her lau.i^htcr 

 quick and contagious. This brave front is no mask. 

 It is real. Sunlight, song, color, form, and fragrance 

 are real. And so our love and joy in Nature is real. 

 Real, also, should be our love and sorrow with Na- 

 ture. For do I share fully in as much of her life as 

 even the crow lives as long as I think of the creature 

 only with admiration for his cunning or with wrath 

 for his destruction of my melons and corn.? 



A crow has his solemn moments. He frequently 

 knows fear, pain, hunger, accident, and disease ; he 

 knows something very like affection and love. For 

 all that, he is a mere crow. But a mere crow is no 

 mean thing. Few of us, indeed, are ourselves, and 

 as much besides as a mere crow. A real love, how- 

 ever, will give us part in all of his existence. \Vc will 

 forage and fight with him ; we will parley and play ; 

 and when the keen north winds find him in the 

 frozen pines, we will suffer, too. 



With Nature as mere waters, fields, and skies, it is, 

 perhaps, impossible for us to sorrow. She is too self- 

 sufficient, too impersonal. She asks, or compels, 

 everything except tears. But when she becomes 

 birds and beasts, — a little world of individuals 



93 



