176 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



in later years has been a very great delight and in- 

 spiration. I think I gain, by familiarity with its life, 

 something of its vitality, at least in spirit. The long 

 vista of the great trees, the sunshine mottling the leaves 

 and filling the open spaces beneath with beautiful light, 

 the immeasurable canopy and the shade, the birds sing- 

 ing their loves and their joys, the squirrels frisking 

 among the acorns, and the atmosphere of age which 

 pervades it, all have filled my mind with never-to-be- 

 forgotten impressions of the beauty and loveliness of 

 the old woods, and a memory abides that is a per- 

 petual dream. 



I hear the low moo of a cow, feeding on the near-by 

 blue grass. The silence echoes it. The flute-like notes 

 of a wood thrush fall from the branches of a maple. 

 As I listen, the sweet tones of Sabbath chimes come 

 floating through the aisles of the trees. Fainter, fainter 

 — as they wind through the forest and die away — so 

 the sounds bring back past memories, which themselves 

 drift and weave about the trunks, like mist, at last also 

 to fade, far beyond, into the haze of a dim, happy, 

 fond long-ago. 



Adam was the first forester. "The Lord God took 

 the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress 

 it and to keep it," even with the rude stone implements 

 of those days of primitive man. Indeed, it would 

 seem as if the care of trees, their pruning, culture, and 

 fostering, was a divinely intended and natural occu- 

 pation of mankind (as, too, it has always been one 

 of the most congenial), man, besides, to subsist on the 

 native fruits and nuts of the groves. Thus far have 



