1 78 IN SUMMER. 



!3rook. 



IT is not that I may indulge in mock heroics 

 that I champion the so-called waste-places, but 

 out of pure love for the merits of even the least 

 of Nature's work. A single cedar casts sufficient 

 shade for me, and, resting full length on a bed of 

 yarrow, I have, at once the breath of the tropics 

 and the aroma of the Spice Islands wherewith to 

 while away these July days. From such a spot 

 there is pleasure too in watching the shifting 

 scenes of the sunlit world beyond a pleasure 

 greater than peering into the depths of a dark, 

 monotonous swamp or pathless wood. But if 

 this is simplifying matters beyond reasonable 

 limits, then let us to a wayside brook, and to 

 the shade and spiciness add the music of rip- 

 pling waters. Surely this should suffice the idle 

 saunterer at midsummer. When it is ninety in 

 the shade, it is wiser to watch the minnows in a 

 brook than to battle with pickerel in the mill- 

 pond. Nor should such contemplation be too 

 trivial for one's fancy. Even little fishes have 

 their ups and downs, although everything goes 

 swimmingly with them. As has been said some- 

 where, if my memory plays me no tricks, the 

 fish-world is diversified by other occurrences 

 than feeding or going to feed others. In other 



