WINTER SUNSHINE. 29 



doves circling above it, some whiskey-dealer from 

 the city, we were told, trying to take the poison out 

 of his money by agriculture. 



We next passed through some woods, when we 

 emerged into a broad, sunlit, fertile-looking valley, 

 called Oxen Run. We stooped down and drank of 

 its clear white-pebbled stream, in the veritable spot I 

 suspect where the oxen do. There were clouds of 

 birds here on the warm slopes, with the usual sprink- 

 ling along the bushy margin of the stream of scarlet 

 grossbeaks. The valley of Oxen Run has many 

 good-looking farms, with old picturesque houses, and 

 loose rambling barns, such as artists love to put into 

 pictures. 



But it is a little awkward to go east. It always 

 seems left-handed. I think this is the feeling of all 

 walkers, and that Thoreau's experience in this re- 

 spect was not singular. The great magnet is the 

 sun, and we follow him. I notice that people lost in 

 the woods work to the westward. When one comes 

 out of his house and asks himself " Which way shall 

 I walk ? " and looks up and down and around for a 

 sign or a token, does he not nine times out of ten 

 turn to the west ? He inclines this way as surely as 

 the willow wand bends toward the water. There is 

 something more genial and friendly in this direc- 

 tion. 



Occasionally in winter I experience a southern in- 

 clination, and cross Long Bridge and rendezvous for 

 the day in some old earth-work on the Virginia hills. 



