174 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



stronger for their natural dissolution, the shining 

 green seedlings of the forest which is to be scout at 

 the feet of the aged hemlocks, ready to take their 

 places. The wind whispers solemnly over my head, 

 a wood-pewee calls sweetly, a warbler tinkles past, 

 swift and silent, giving me no chance to identify 

 him. Peace and beauty, fragrance and wonder, are 

 at the heart of the scene. 



On the way back to my cabin I see the stalk of a 

 Lilium philadelphicum holding up its green seed-pod, 

 and with a stick I dig up the bulb, to transplant 

 into my wild-flower garden at my dwelling below. 

 I carefully unwind, too, the slender thread of a hog- 

 peanut vine from the seedling tree which it has used 

 for a trellis, and bring its two-foot length, with its 

 pretty, white, vetchlike blooms, to hang over my 

 railing. I note a patch of purple cliff-brake, not 

 on a damp, shaded rock, but amid grass, in full sun- 

 light, and put up a stick to mark the spot, that I 

 may come in the spring and get some for certain dry 

 rocks in my garden. I see with delight, too, the 

 leaves of the hepaticas on the forest floor, a curious 

 reminder in August of the vanished April, or is it a 

 reminder of the April to come? To me there is a 

 rare and delicate pleasure in detecting the foliage 

 of the dainty spring wild flowers, amid the ranker 

 growth of midsummer; it is a subtle overtone of en- 

 joym^it, or an under-song of memory. . . . 



I am back on my cabin veranda now, in my bat- 

 tered old rocking-chair, with a board across the arms 

 for a desk. Looking west, through a velvety hole 

 along the edge of the hemlocks, I can see a bit of the 

 leaping mountain shoulder, lifting its naked gray 



