Music of the Wild 



stumps, all within a few rods of the house that 

 the felled trees had shaded -from noon until sunset. 

 These trees liad heen eut within tlie past two years, 

 and the house had stood for many. There was not 

 a gro^\'th anywhere arcnmd it except a few scrub 

 cedars, and not a bird note. It was bared to the 

 burning heat. 



\^'hat ^\'ould it have meant to the M'omen and 

 children of that stopping-])Iace, for there was no 

 A Road- sign of home around it, to have had the tight pal- 

 side Dream Jug-feuce tom nwav f rom the few yards immedi- 

 ately surrounding the house; the shelter of those 

 big trees, ^\ ith an easy seat beneath them, and a 

 hammock s^vinging between? I dreamed those 

 trees were growing again and filled with bird notes, 

 that fence down, a coat of fresh ])aint on the house, 

 the implements standing in the barn lot sheltered, 

 and one day's Avork spent in arranging the i^rem- 

 ises. Into the dream would come a vision of open 

 doors and A\'indoA\'s, the sound of the voices of con- 

 tented women, the shouts of hajjpy children, and 

 the chirping of many birds. 



Some farms belong to men my critic calls a 

 "tight-wad." That is not a classic expression; but 

 if yon saw the lands from which every tree had 

 been sold, the creeks and ponds dried and plowed 

 o^er, the fields inclosed in stretches of burning 

 Avire fence to alloAv cultivation A\'ithin a few inches 

 of it, not a bird note sounding. — you would uti- 



238 



