TOUCHES OF NATUBE 47 



of essentially the same material, — woody fibres 

 scraped from old rails and boards. And there is 

 news on it, too, if one could make out the characters. 



When I stopped the entrance with cotton, there 

 was no commotion or excitement, as there would 

 have been in the case of yellow-jackets. Those 

 outside went to pulling, and those inside went to 

 pushing and chewing. Only once did one of the 

 outsiders come down and look me suspiciously in 

 the face, and inquire very plainly what my business 

 might be up there. I bowed my head, being at the 

 top of a twenty-foot ladder, and had nothing to say. 



The cotton was chewed and moistened about the 

 edges till every fibre was loosened, when the mass 

 dropped. But instantly the entrance was made 

 smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of stop- 

 ping it more difficult. 



IV 



There are those who look at Nature from the 

 standpoint of conventional and artificial life, — from 

 parlor windows and through gilt-edged poems, — the 

 sentimentalists. At the other extreme are those 

 who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown 

 part of her, and look away from her toward the other 

 class, — the backwoodsmen and pioneers, and all 

 rude and simple persons. Then there are those in 

 whom the two are united or merged, — the great 

 poets and artists. In them the sentimentalist is 

 corrected and cured, and the hairy and taciturn 

 frontiersman has had experience to some purpose. 



