OUR COUNTRY LIFE 



A region of utter wildness lies about seven miles to 

 the south of us, a tract of land consisting of some two 

 hundred acres on which the hand of civilization has 

 never set its seal. Rich land it is and fertile beyond 

 words, but no man has ventured yet to curb its native 

 growths. To its borders extend fields of corn and 

 grain; to its edges wander grazing cattle; but within 

 its dark recesses no highway penetrates, no path is cut. 

 For this is the tamarack swamp, and even in the driest 

 season here stands water bathing the feet of the 

 feathery larches. From the outside it is always allur- 

 ing, this tamarack swamp. In the dull days of No- 

 vember its brown interlaced twigs are blurred and 

 misty against the sky; when the snow comes, it is like 

 a vast garden of Christmas trees ; and in the early spring 

 when the delicate needles first appear, a lovely 

 evanescent green, it is indeed a fairy forest; in Septem- 

 ber, too, above radiant fields of wild coreopsis it is 

 filled with a mysterious charm, and facing the glory 

 of the setting sun its dark pointed tree-tops gain a new 

 beauty. 



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