A COMMON EXPERIENCE 



Indeed, it is for something better than 

 mere shooting or fishing that he has 

 come so far. One squirrel, flicking the 

 leaves with his downfall, one grouse 

 plunging to earth midway in his thun- 

 derous flight, one trout caught as he can 

 catch him, now, will appease his moder- 

 ate craving for sport, and best and most 

 desired of all, make him, for the nonce, a 

 boy again. He anticipates with quicker 

 heartbeat the thrill of surprised delight 

 that choked him with its fullness when 

 he achieved his first triumph. 



At last the hilltop is gained, but what 

 unfamiliar scene is this which has taken 

 the place of that so cherished in his 

 memory and so longed for ? Can that 

 naked hillside slanting toward him from 

 the further rim of the valley, forlorn in 

 the desolation of recent clearing, be the 

 wooded slope of the other day ? Can 

 the poor, unpicturesque thread of water 

 that crawls in feeble attenuation between 

 its shorn, unsightly banks be the wild, 

 free brook whose voice was a continual 

 song, every rod of whose amber and silver 

 course was a picture ? Even its fringes of 

 willow and alders, useful for their shade 



