BIRD PARADISE 177 



robins and bluebirds. The song of all songs 

 that I heard came from the brook as it rippled 

 down the gorge. What a gentle murmur it is, 

 and how it seems to absorb and make its own all 

 other sounds. I stood where I could look down 

 into the glen, the brook dancing along a hundred 

 feet below me. How wild and weird it all ap- 

 peared. I saw again the boy of sixty years ago 

 — the old boy in the new boy, and the new in the 

 old, and someway the vision seemed the most 

 rosy of anything I saw in my long walk. I 

 found that part of the fun of seeing one boy was 

 seeing several others, all intent upon doing the 

 wood in true boy style. I knew the voices. The 

 peals of laughter that echoed through the wood 

 were all known to the man or boy. The great 

 trees seemed to greet the boys with an old time 

 " All hail." What an hour it was and how 

 much it held. It was a sort of drawing aside of 

 the great curtain that after all only slightly veils 

 the home of homes. A great sacrament it seemed, 

 with its inward and spiritual grace, the grace at 

 its best, the revelation of life as the Master un- 

 folds it in the Father's house. 



What a variety of pranks our wild creatures 

 indulge in ! My attention was attracted this 



