A New World 



Scotch boys before and made a desperate 

 screaming as if we were robbers like themselves ; 

 though we left the eggs untouched, feeling that 

 we were already beginning to get rich, and 

 wondering how many more nests we should find 

 in the grand sunny woods. Then we ran along 

 the brow of the hill that the shanty stood on, 

 and down to the meadow, searching the trees 

 and grass tufts and bushes, and soon discovered 

 a bluebird's and a woodpecker's nest, and be- 

 gan an acquaintance with the frogs and snakes 

 and turtles in the creeks and springs. 



This sudden plash into pure wildness — 

 baptism in Nature's warm heart — how utterly 

 happy it made us! Nature streaming into 

 us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing 

 lessons, so unlike the dismal grammar ashes 

 and cinders so long thrashed into us. Here 

 without knowing it we still were at school; 

 every wild lesson a love lesson, not whipped but 

 charmed into us. Oh, that glorious Wisconsin 

 wilderness! Everything new and pure in the 

 very prime of the spring when Nature's pulses 

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