How Animals Talk 



with pleasure on a great mound of moss, colored 

 as no garden of flowers was ever colored, swelling 

 above the bog on the farther shore. On either 

 hand the water sparkles wider away, disappearing 

 around a bend with an invitation to come and 

 see. To the left it ends in velvety shadow under 

 a bank of evergreen ; to the right it seems to merge 

 into, the level shore, where shadow melts with 

 substance in a belt of blended colors. A few yards 

 back from the shore groups of young larches lift 

 their misty-green foliage above the caribou moss; 

 they seem not to be rooted deep in the earth, but 

 to be all standing on tiptoe, as if to look over the 

 brim of my pond and see their own reflections. 

 Everywhere between these larch groups are shad- 

 owy corridors; and in one of them your eye is 

 caught by a spot of bright orange. The spot 

 moves, disappears, flashes out again from the 

 misty green, and a deer steps forth to complete 

 the wilderness picture with the grace of life. 



Such is my pond, hidden away in the heart of a 

 caribou bog, which is itself well hidden in dense 

 forest. Before I found it the wild ducks had made 

 it a summer home from time immemorial; and 

 now, since I disturb it no more, it is possessed in 

 peace by a family of beavers ; yet I still think of 

 it as mine 3 not by grace of any artificial law or 

 deed, but ty the more ancient right of possession 



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