The Rambles of an Idler 



irrecoverable as we think. The valley that now 

 is is the valley that once was, the one Nature 

 fashioned with sloping bank, level meadow, a 

 bit of resisting clay capped with button-bushes, 

 and a spring brook, so reckless it did not look 

 where it was going and faced all the points of 

 the compass before settling upon some one of 

 them. Happy brook, surely, for in all these 

 years it was hidden it lost not the secret of its 

 youth and sparkles to-day as if no shadow had 

 ever fallen upon it. A happy brook with white 

 pebbles strewn throughout its way and the sil- 

 very minnow and checkered darter flashing in 

 the ripple as they did when my forbears, as lit- 

 tle boys and girls, played hereabout. 



Only the garrets of our oldest houses retaiu 

 a colonial atmosphere nowadays, but I found it 

 here this morning, out of doors, in a winding, 

 narrow valley, that has been drowned a century 

 and more, but with the breath of life again in its 

 lungs, and trembling with the same exuberance 

 of joy as it did before man marred what Na- 

 ture made. Fresh green leaves, the incompar- 

 able yellow-green of early May; warblers by 

 scores that dropped in upon the scene before 

 the sun rose, the exultant rose-breast and the 



164 



