The Rambles of an Idler 



beyond hemmed in a wide expanse of water, the 

 river broadening to a lake, is the conclusion 

 of the geologist, and is not open to discussion. 

 Later the waters receded as the climate became 

 milder and the glacial period passed into pre- 

 history, and now between upland and meadow 

 we have a strip of woodland. It has never been 

 disturbed, except as Nature works changes in 

 the land. Trees have grown, died and decayed, 

 and others came promptly to replace them. 

 This, the simple story for ten thousand years 

 or more, and so it comes where I now stand 

 there is a forest floor. The impressions of the 

 massive feet of the mastodon, the moose and 

 the reindeer were long since obliterated by those 

 of the elk, the deer and the bear. The cougar 

 gave way to the lynx, and now there are but 

 minks, muskrats, opossums, skunks, squirrels 

 and mice. A sad gradation from the sublime to 

 the commonplace, but, happily, it is the same 

 old forest floor. 



December now, and the leaves have fallen. 

 The "all-seeing" sun shines upon the ground, 

 but there is no unobstructed glare such as at 

 noonday rests upon the fields. The interlaced 

 branches of the oaks cast many a shadow, and 



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