Woodsy Impressions 



there was in this one to attract me, what outward 

 grace or inward tree-sprite, I have not yet found 

 out. 



Another subconscious record seems to have been 

 made for beauty alone, with its consequent pleas- 

 ure, rather than for utility. As I watched my 

 pond one summer morning, intent on learning 

 what attracted so many deer to its shores, the 

 mind apparently chose its own moment for making 

 a perfect picture, a masterpiece, which should hang 

 in its woodsy frame on my mental wall forever. 

 The sky was wondrously clear, the water dancing, 

 the air laden with the fragrance of peat and 

 sweet-scented grass. Deer were slow in coming 

 that morning, and meanwhile nothing of conse- 

 quence stirred on my pond; but there was still 

 abundant satisfaction in the brilliant dragon- 

 flies that balanced on bending reeds, or in the 

 brood of wild ducks that came bobbing out like 

 young mischief-makers from a hidden bogan, or 

 even in the face of the pond itself, as it brightened 

 under a gleam of sunshine or frowned at a passing 

 cloud or broke into a laugh at the touch of a cat's- 

 paw wind. Suddenly all these pleasant minor mat- 

 ters were brushed aside when a bush quivered and 

 held still on the farther shore. 



All morning the bushes had been quivering, 

 showing the silvery side of their leaves to every 



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