PEPACTON I A SUMMER VOYAGE WHEN one summer day I bethought me of a voyage down the east or Pepacton branch of the Delaware, I seemed to want some excuse for the start, some send-off, some preparation, to give the enterprise genesis and head. This I found in building my own boat. It was a happy thought. How else should I have got under way, how else should I have raised the breeze? The boat-building warmed the blood; it made the germ take; it... more...

WAITING   Serene, I fold my hands and wait,  Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;  I rave no more 'gainst Time or Fate,  For lo! my own shall come to me.   I stay my haste, I make delays,  For what avails this eager pace?  I stand amid the eternal ways,  And what is mine shall know my face.   Asleep, awake, by night or day,  The friends I seek... more...

THE PASTORAL BEES The honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring like the dove from Noah's ark, and it is not till after many days that she brings back the olive leaf, which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon each hip, usually obtained from the alder or the swamp willow. In a country where maple sugar is made the bees get their first taste of sweet from the sap as it flows from the spiles, or as it dries and is condensed upon the... more...

INTRODUCTION This little volume really needs no introduction; the two sketches of which it is made explain and, I hope, justify themselves. But there is one phase of the President's many-sided character upon which I should like to lay especial emphasis, namely, his natural history bent and knowledge. Amid all his absorbing interests and masterful activities in other fields, his interest and his authority in practical natural history are by no... more...

I BIRDS AND POETS "In summer, when the shawes be shene,And leaves be large and long,It is full merry in fair forestTo hear the fowlés' song.The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease,Sitting upon the spray;So loud, it wakened Robin HoodIn the greenwood where he lay." It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament that fully responds to them. So true is this,... more...

In the town of Roxbury, among the western Catskills, was born April 3, 1837, John Burroughs. The house in which he first saw the light was an unpainted, squarish structure, only a single story high, with a big chimney in the middle. This house was removed a few years later, and a better and somewhat larger one, which still stands, was built in its place. The situation is very pleasing. Roundabout is a varied country of heights, dales, woods and... more...

PRELIMINARY I The writing of this preliminary chapter, and the final survey and revision of my Whitman essay, I am making at a rustic house I have built at a wild place a mile or more from my home upon the river. I call this place Whitman Land, because in many ways it is typical of my poet,—an amphitheatre of precipitous rock, slightly veiled with a delicate growth of verdure, enclosing a few acres of prairie-like land, once the site of... more...

WAYS OF NATURE I was much amused lately by a half-dozen or more letters that came to me from some Californian schoolchildren, who wrote to ask if I would please tell them whether or not birds have sense. One little girl said: "I would be pleased if you would write and tell me if birds have sense. I wanted to see if I couldn't be the first one to know." I felt obliged to reply to the children that we ourselves do not have sense enough to know... more...

In coming before the public with a newly made edition of my writings, what can I say to my reader at this stage of our acquaintance that will lead to a better understanding between us? Probably nothing. We understand each other very well already. I have offered myself as his guide to certain matters out of doors, and to a few matters indoor, and he has accepted me upon my own terms, and has, on the whole been better pleased with me than I had any... more...

UNDERTHE MAPLES I THE FALLING LEAVES The time of the falling of leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept. How beautifully the leaves grow old! How full of light and color are their last days! There are exceptions, of course. The leaves of most of the fruit-trees fade and wither and fall... more...