84 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
The foraging is accomplished. Lest the irre- 
ligious misapprehend (as the manner of the 
wicked is) and suppose that foraging means pur- 
loining, I will proclaim that such edibles as are 
foraged for by me are paid for in good cash. 
Honesty is the right policy when a body goes 
forth to emperor it over a day because the con- 
science must be in the sunlight lest the eyes see 
no vistas and the ears hear no song. 
So, away, away, blithe heart. The day is 
thine! Enjoy this day. Carpe diem, though we 
shall not need Horace or the odors of his Alban 
farm to help us. The bobolink is here and puts 
Horace to discomfit and silence. 
For on this day I first heard the bobolink. 
This may seem untraveled; but is not truth often 
untraveled? Yet even so it was. My rearing 
had been where no bobolink lifted his voice nor 
gave us the courtesy of his presence. And here 
on this June day in Wisconsin I was totally 
unaware the bobolink was within a sky’s width 
when, on a sudden, I, wading across lots on a 
springy ground half prairie and half marsh, 
where the wild growth tangled and tossed, a 
flash of brown-white wings flashing in flight and 
dulcet song rich with June’s wild staccato 
thrilled me—discovered me until I set down 
the things I had foraged and wandered about 
with the vagabond of June and challenged him 
for another flight and another tune. When he 
came to the humid grass as on broken wing, I 
