Under the Oaks and Elsewhere 



few are the rays that are not shut off by the 

 spreading crowns of the beeches. There is lit- 

 tle grass, but much moss, and this so gray that 

 it suggests old age. There are few annual 

 growths, and these not always conspicuous. 

 The wind spitefully heaps the dead leaves over 

 many a blossom. Bluets and claytonia in 

 spring, asters and goldenrods in autumn — ^these 

 come and go in their seasons, but there is al- 

 ways the gray moss, that yields softly to my 

 step, like tufted carpet. There is no jarring, 

 no noise, save when dry twigs are snapped. I 

 can pass from tree to tree as silently and swift- 

 ly as an Indian, disturbing nothing, distracting 

 no bird in the branches overhead and scarcely 

 noticed by the mice in their runways that cross 

 my path. To be here is a delight at all times, 

 and as pleasant now in December as when the 

 world was all astir. This is a hazy, meditative 

 day, and the forest floor tells its story more 

 plainly than it could have done above the songs 

 of summer birds. The facts are now laid bare. 

 Here and for miles around the bedrock is deep 

 down in the earth, and we have only sand and 

 pebbles, with an occasional bowlder of preten- 

 tious size ; but few are the trees that because of 



233 



