The sun came out as I started on again, pouring its quickening light in a wondrous cascade of shimmering beauty over the dark green sea of foliage. The leaves rustled a welcome, and a breeze which was like a sigh of gratitude from the Earth's big heart, arose. This greeting of nature unto nature that still morning stirred me deeply in some way; I could feel the answering thrill in my breast, and I stopped in my tracks, took my cap from my head, and faced the great golden ball with what I imagine was almost the ardor of a sun-worshiper. I was alone with my ancient mother; the mother from whence I came and unto whom I would return, and clearer than ever in my life before I felt the kinship of the sturdy trees, and knew that the sap and fiber of every growing thing about me was part and parcel of my being. Tiny waves of emotion began to tingle along my nerves as I stood bareheaded, at one with the universe, and then slowly the waves grew in magnitude until every vein and artery was inundated with a mighty surge of joy. A puff of wind blew a spray of blackberry bush across my cheek, scratching it with a thorn. I started and looked, to find that I had unknowingly come to the edge of the road. At a turn a quarter of a mile further on I saw the hamlet. Five or six houses, a railway station, the superstructure of an iron bridge, and to one side a formidable building of brick, which I correctly surmised to be the distillery. Between me and the hamlet lay a stretch of cleared bottom land, fenced off into fields. I saw an expanse of wheat, green and full eared; another of oats, not so tall, and having a peculiar bluish shade. Other fields were simply bare, brown reaches of freshly turned earth, prepared for corn or tobacco. Now to my ears came a sound which has been heard since the world was young; the musical ring of iron against iron; the song of the forge. Across the lowland it drifted to me, losing all harshness in its coming, and falling in pleasing cadences upon the air. I knew it was no uncertain hand which held the hammer, for the strokes were vigorous and in time, interrupted now and again by the drum-like roll as the hammer danced upon the anvil. I went forward leisurely, crossed a stream on a suspension foot-bridge of native manufacture, then up a slight rise till I stood in the broad doorway of the smithy. The worker, intent upon his task, had neither seen nor heard my approach. I stood and looked at him silently.