THE MISSING TOOTH 



85 



color, form, and fragrance are real. And so is our 

 love and joy in Nature real. Real, also, should be 

 our sympathy and sorrow with Nature. 



Here, for instance, are my crows : do I share fully 

 in the life of Nature so long as I think of the crow 

 only with admiration for his cunning or with wrath 

 at his destruction of my melons and corn ? 



A crow has his solemn moments. He knows fear, 

 pain, hunger, accident, and disease ; he knows some- 

 thing very like affection and love. For all that, he 

 is a mere crow. But a mere crow is no mean thing. 

 He is my brother, and a real love will give me part 

 in all his existence. I will forage and fight with him ; 



when the keen 

 frozen pines, 



voles. I know 



I will parley and play ; and 

 north winds find him in the 

 I will suffer with him, too. 



Here again are my meadow 

 that my hay crop is shorter 

 every year for them, a very 

 little shorter. And I can look 

 with satisfaction at a cat carry- 

 ing a big bob-tailed vole out 

 of my "mowing," for the 

 voles, along with other mice, 

 are injurious to man. 



But one day I came upon two of my voles 

 struggling for life in the water, exhausted and well- 

 nigh dead. I helped them out, as I should have 

 helped out any other creature, and having saved 



