44Q 



RECREATION 



way with purple and cover the hillsides 

 to the vexation of the farmer, but the 

 delight of the traveler. The sumach 

 and brier cluster about the old stone 

 walls and with the bittersweet and 

 woodbine make them glorious in the 

 fall. The sweet brier, escaped from 

 the garden, mingles with the wild roses 

 in the roadside tangle. In fact it is a 

 poor road which will not yield a fine 

 bouquet on its borders from the first 

 violet until the golden-rod and aster 



she leaps away into the underbrush. In 

 the dust of the road one sees the foot- 

 prints of a previous traveler — the 

 skunk. Here he came into the road 

 to study the strange broad tracks made 

 by a touring automobile ; he followed the 

 path, made by the rubber tire in the 

 dust, for a hundred yards and here he 

 has gone again into the woods. 



The fences and walls are the haunts 

 of many wild creatures. How a chip- 

 munk loves an old tumble-down stone 



; ;3isiiWJ<; 



The kingfisher rattled across the hot meadow 



make it a glory of purple and gold. 

 How lovingly the trees stretch out their 

 long arms trying to cover the scarred 

 nakedness made by man. The wood 

 sends out from its entrenchment fur- 

 ther and further its skirmish line, until 

 its branches brush the passerby. The 

 squirrels scamper across the road be- 

 fore the traveler. They chatter at him 

 from an oak as he passes. He is scolded 

 as an intruder with no rights there. A 

 rabbit starts with mild wonder before 



wall ! He scampers along its top ahead 

 of the traveler, until, too closely fol- 

 lowed, he dives down beneath the 

 stones. The red squirrels make a high- 

 way of old fences, running along the 

 rails for long distances, and weasels 

 often dwell in stone walls, where, with 

 chattering teeth, the white-footed mice 

 watch them. Thus there be many be- 

 sides men who dwell on the highway. 



And some birds also seem to like the 

 society of man. The song sparrow 



