How Animals Talk 



at the end of the alder run, with sunshiny water 

 and crimson bog and misty-green larches around 

 them, as a frame for the picture; and then the 

 whole beautiful anticipation came tumbling in 

 ruin about my ears. 



Before I reached my pond, before I saw the 

 welcoming gleam of it even, I was at every step 

 going over my shoetops in water, where formerly 

 I had always found dry footing. Something dis- 

 astrous had happened in my absence; the whole 

 bog was overflowed; around it was no mist of 

 delicate foliage but only skeleton trees, stark and 

 pitiful. In my heart I was berating the lumber- 

 men, whose ugly works are the ruination of every 

 place they visit, when at last I waded to an open- 

 ing that gave outlook on my pond; and the first 

 thing I noticed, as my eyes swept the familiar 

 scene, was a beaver-house cocked up on the shore, 

 like a warning sign of new ownership. 



It is true that blessings brighten as they take 

 their flight: not till I read that crude sign of 

 dispossession did I know how much pleasure my 

 little pond had given me. The lonely beauty 

 which could quiet a man like a psalm, or like an 

 Indian's wordless prayer; the glimpses of wild 

 creatures at home and unafraid ; the succession of 

 radiant pictures, at sunny midday, or beneath the 

 hushed twilight, or in the expectant morning be- 



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