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AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



resist it, and I would not If I could, for I love It. And 

 the mournful notes of the dove amongst the branches 

 of yonder aged hickory — they, too, throb In my spirit, 

 and bespeak the utter loneliness and solitude of the 

 forest. 



To walk among these trees and ferns, amid the 

 lisping of leaves, or to lie upon earth's mossy restful- 

 ness near a tinkling brook — surely, this Is a part of 

 Paradise ! A place, one might think, at least for 

 Theocritus, or, In its sterner aspects, even for Dante. 



In spring, what? Opening blossoms and greening 

 wood roads; slopes of spring beauties; birds bubbling 

 forth their music — warbling, yodeling, caroling — peal- 

 ing out what not from their little throats. What a 

 variety in the early spring colors — the pink and light 

 green of the buds, the myriad hues of the blossoms of 

 the sod and the trees, the redbud and the dogwood! 

 And the old woods boasts, besides the Claytonia, the 

 pepper-and-salt, blue, yellow, and white violets, wood 

 sorrel, sweet William, Jack-in-the-pulpit, sweet cicely, 

 wild ginseng, Dutchman's breeches, squirrel corn, wake- 

 robin, the true and false Solomon's seal, and many other 

 wild flowers, each in Its day, while ferns of graceful 

 forms — the maidenhair, evergreen, woodsia, polypody, 

 rattlesnake fern — come pushing up their curiously 

 curled fronds, and along the brooks the wild ginger 

 spreads abroad Its wide leaves. 



In summer? The great trees canopied with their 

 green coronals, the long, droning hum of the forest, 

 the rich scent of mint and pennyroyal. The green- 

 brier and climbing sarsaparilla, wild morning-glories, 

 the poison three-leafed ivy, and the true five-pointed 



