June 12. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
191 
buildings ? If not, do so in this sun-glistening weather. 
You will see what past summers have been doing—summers 
of great heat. They have been scorching the clap-boards 
that they look brown—with other times. If the sun shines 
while you are looking, you will also see little waves of 
heated air climb up, and over the dry roof, thence to the 
infinite sky. This the sun does in February—kind, is 
it not ? 
The other day I went through a wood. Let me tell how 
I passed my time in idleness. Idleness is sometimes good 
—I don’t mean absolute do-nothing. A man’s mind while 
awake is always busy. 
I walked among the long stems of the wood; it is a 
satisfaction to be surrounded by them. How fine a thought 
is in the bark of trees—what variety!—the smooth, white, 
dappled, deep-ribbed, as in the princely ash; red and mossy 
as in the Indian Hemlock when it crests a ridge. To me 
there is a “ feeling ” in the bark of trees—its roughness is 
so plain and humble, so hardy and useful, and away-from- 
the-city ! And the trees never change the fashion of their 
garments. 
Another thing. The snow was marked with many little 
j tracks, which sometimes, not often, crossed each other— 
squirrel tracks, made by spry feet; hare tracks, and the 
straight line path of the ruffled grouse, where each foot is 
placed exactly before the other, connected by a nail slide. 
These tracks indicate the life of the winter woods. The 
chickadee gives expression to this life: it is drawn around 
the labour of the woodman, often interfering with his axe; 
a cheerful, chirping life there, seeking amid the tonic smell 
of the timber, its food; tugging most earnestly when it 
finds a plump worm in the wood. 
“ This is a wholesome exercise,” I remarked to the 
chopper. 
(Hems) “ Yes, if your axe is good ; ” and he felt of the 
edge. The steel, marked by a line, was as blue as the sky 
which shone on it, and as polished as a mirror glinting 
another sun. 
“That axe is Morris’s make yet of Little Falls,” he said; 
as if that were sufficient recommend ation. The next moment 
the chips were Hying a storm, to the no small danger of 
birds and by-standers. 
There is a beauty in chopping ; especially when an Ajax 
guides the edge. The axe is the civilizer of mankind. Ah, 
what grain-clouded fields does the eye skim over in summer! 
The axe did it. Look at the orchard, blossoming in spring, 
fruitful in autumn. The axe permitted it to grow on its 
clearing—the poor, plain axe, now worn and laid by, where 
it rusts unnoticed. It once had a keen eye that shone in 
the woods. You could hear its smart strokes following each 
other, and accumulating, till they burst forth one collected 
thunder-crash of the tree. It is a simple instrument— 
omnipresent—on the ocean—in the solitude of Robinson 
Crusoe; every one has it—any one can make a handle for it 
—any one can use it—but many do not like to use it. 
February, the last day. —I visited my uncle’s to-day. An 
old scene was re-enacted ; buckets were brought from their 
musty nooks; steamed, and ranged, a multitude along the 
brook. The old kitchen was a scene—great kettles boiling, 
room smoky, barrels, buckets, and boys in the way—geese 
cackling, grimalkins furtively gliding by—and little Maud, 
fearing to be jostled, half screaming, “What boys—what 
confusion !” Out door the great dome shone serenely blue, 
with a small wind, scarce felt, coming thence; eaves were 
hurrying; the brook was rushing—spreading beyond its 
bounds with its grey-colored snow water, threatening the 
world witli inundation : the plain is already overcome; and 
this sound is the breaking up of the season. What noise! 
all life is astir; the air seems hollow and echoes distinctly. 
There is a watery look in the southern sky, threatening rain, 
which is seldom ever fulfilled. In the night it will probably 
rain. 
A tapping in the distant woods. The sugaring season 
has commenced—glorious, old-fashioned, boyhood’s time! 
Who cares for the toil—for the deep snow, crusted over! 
with the tall trees—daily growing taller as the snow lessens 
—rising, as of old, to the heaven of childhood; seeming 
like great brushes against the sky. 
There is a bird—I have often heard it at night by the 
fire-light—that has a peculiarly sweet note. We used to 
call it the “sugar-whistle.” It would chirp all night and 
during the day. Many a time have I sat nights and 
divided the hours between it and the bubbling of the kettles, 
and the dripping of the spouts in the silence of a burning 
sky. Perhaps the next moment this clear blue sky was 
sifting the fine snow upon you, wetting your unmittened 
hands, getting, as you stooped, into your neck, your ears— 
but over again as soon as it came, with a brighter sky 
looking upon you. 
I love the opening of the sugar season, when these fine 
siftings meet you often. There is the chink, chink of the 
tapper, as he wends his way from tree to tree, where soon 
the overflowing bucket breaks into thousand ripples the 
reflected blue of the sky. You know the delectable time 
has then commenced. Ah, the boyhood’s, girlhood’s time— 
for fair forms were there too—has fled ; no, it is still among 
us, and our memory of its past is a sun that enlightens the 
present. 
But still more animating is the close of the sap season, 
running into the real spring, when the snow is all gone, 
leaving, (before the flrst shower raises it) the forest floor 
smooth-pressed, each leaf in its place as the fall winds laid 
it. It is easy then to locomote in the woods, though a twig 
will now and then make you lift your pail, after spilling 
half the contents. 
About this time you may expect dark risings of thunder 
clouds, whose distant rolls are sometimes mistook for the 
drumming of the partridge, and vice versa. This uncertainty 
between bird and sky is particularly impressive at night, 
when the earth, as well as the heavens, is black. You love 
the dark scene, for it is the genuine large-beaded shower that 
tells you better than all else what is coming after. The 
days are warm and weeping when the snow flumes are con¬ 
verted into rain; but the clear nights will still give us frost, 
and then there will follow another “ sap-spell.” Not yet do 
the buds enlarge, though the eye of the sugar boiler is often 
up turned to the maple branches, for when once the buds 
begin to sprout there is no more sugar coined—molasses 
then. 
And now look out for your surprises. You walk along, 
and the first hepatica startles you. You are sure to stoop, 
and almost conclude you will spare the tender thing—because 
a firstling. How pitifully its eye pleads to be spared—a large, 
tender eye, seeming to hold a tear-drop hidden—butyou pluck 
it, and feast on its little scent. 
The next step in the approach of the flowers, there will be 
a miracle—a sudden apparition of dusky blades—the adder's 
tongue, crowding in myriads the knolls and copses of the 
forest. When you see its flowers, you see a pleasant sight 
—the beautiful erythronium ! not to be outdone by any 
other American plant 
The day—a new one—has passed, so that the sun just 
touches the verge of the horizon, and the whole view, hills, 
buildings, sky, all is red with the light. The sun is bidding 
adieu to us, and goes to make happy other dominions. 
Already the roofs cease dripping, and icicles are forming. 
The dung-hill fowls, happy and disputing all day, are 
wending along with heads pointing coop-ward. Now is the 
heaven’s dome clear, and round, and deeply infinite—blue at 
the zenith, while a rim of mild light glows around the circle 
of the horizon. There is a look in the domestic tableau (I 
note it as I look out) as if out-doors were washed—a kind 
of Saturday-afternoon-in-the-country look, when each un¬ 
carpeted floor and platform is scoured moistly clean, and the 
female folk are trim and neatly dressed with a Sabbath 
prospect in view. 
Happy world ! when earth, and heaven, and human heart 
are all worth living for, which makes us so wish again for 
the society of the departed — gone—gone! — alas—alas! 
There seems a wrong. It cannot—cannot be ! Is it a dream 
after all ? Oh, that it were a dream—this absence from 
one’s side, not heart, thank Heaven! It seems to be an evil 
of the world that our happy moments should so take on sad¬ 
ness. But there is a sweetness in it.—F. G. 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GUANO. 
The trade in Guano, which has been lately opened to the 
coast of Africa, has not only raised high hopes as to its bene- 
