ONCE UPON A TIME 147 
birds or splash of wind among red clover or 
rioting wheat. So I watch. Nobody knows 
what shall befall me on any day when I am out 
of doors and the growing world has its wealth 
of saps at rise through every artery. My per- 
petual eagerness is on me, only proportioned to 
the time of year and the wonder of cool sky. 
All places out of doors are challenges to which 
I wish humbly but surely to make answer; for 
the challenge clearly is God’s. 
My train was rushing wildly into the arms of 
the wind which tossed about all growing things 
bonnily. The fields were dappled with sunlight 
and cloudlight. Let me coin that word? I need 
it and none will be the poorer for this liberty 
accorded me. We are all the while needing new 
words when we are out doors. God makes the 
things and we must make the words, so shall 
there be work for him and us, and such labor must 
always prove a luxury, a serene luxury of spirit. 
This panorama of fields thus dappled with, 
one moment a flash of exulting sunlight and the 
next an equally exulting cloud shadow, was 
running fleet as a star past my eyes. The right 
of way of the railroad might be for giving wild 
things a growing and life chance, a place once 
again to have coronation rather than for the 
soberer purposes of commerce. But both things 
flourish under one charter. These things must 
not come to the knowledge of the demagogue 
lest he bring action for a trust. 
