SUMMER DAYS 



69 



escape as fast as I could go in and out of the corn- 

 stalks. I suppose that he thought that I was mad. 



That bit of exercise took me a little way into the 

 field, and then I began to be afraid that 1 should 

 lose myself if I went any further, so I sat down and 

 rubbed my nose against a stalk, and the earth was 

 so deliciously warm that 1 lay down at full length 

 and rolled about for a while, in order to get used to 

 the feel of the place. And as I rolled about and 

 revelled in the warm sun, and the smell of the 

 ripening corn floated around my nose, it gradually 

 dawned upon my mind that this was really Paradise, 

 and that it did not matter in the least whether 

 I lost myself or not. There was my breakfast, my 

 dinner, my tea waving over my head, and, just to 

 make sure that it was all right, I nibbled a stalk in 

 half, and pulled down a lovely ear of corn. After 

 all, when you come to think of it, how on earth can 

 you lose yourself when you are there all the time ? 

 You can lose somebody else, and somebody else can 

 lose you ; but I had nobody else to lose in particular, 

 and 1 did not in the least mind who lost me, as long 

 as no unpleasant person found me ; and I felt, at 

 any rate, that 1 was safe from the hawks and owls, 

 with all that beautiful waving sea of corn over my 

 head. I call it a sea because they couldn't see, you 



