54 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
My friend and I are camping out, as our 
custom is, without regard for weather. We do 
not furnish weather but applaud it of whatsoever 
sort it is. Rain, shine, summer, winter, fall, 
spring, night, day, nipping frost, perfervid heat 
—none of these things move us. We are imper- 
vious to climate, or possibly it were better to 
say we are encorers of climates. All weather 
pleases us. We are humble folk like the conies, 
and all we ever have the intrepidity to demand 
is some kind of weather. This demand appears 
to us as rational and religious. And after happy 
years weathering it we report that God has 
always given us weather. Some are critical of 
the climatic conditions: they dictate terms to 
the elements. To us two men who are humble 
belongers to the proletariat of mankind, that 
seems preposterous. To Emerson’s “Give me 
health and a day and I will make the pomp of 
emperors ridiculous,” we vagabonds of the fields 
add “Weather,” so that the wealth we pray 
for is, “Health and a day and some weather.” 
And we always get some weather. In the winter 
the light is briefer; in summer, longer, but dark- 
ness ekes out the light one way or another, so 
we always get a day; and we always get “a 
weather.” What odds whether the weather be 
dark or light, cold or hot, full of song of birds 
or trumpeted full of angry voices of warring 
winds? That is not our concern. The con- 
cert that nature furnishes, seeing it is gratis, 
