Nature is in herself a perpetual invitation: the birds call, the trees beckon and the winds whisper to us. After the unfeeling pavements, the yielding springy turf of the fields has a sympathy with the feet and invites us to walk. It is good to hear again the fine long-drawn note of the meadow-lark--voice of the early year,--the first bluebird's warble, the field-sparrow's trill, the untamed melody of the kinglet--a magic flute in the wilderness--and to see the ruby crown of the beloved sprite. It is good to inhale the mint crushed underfoot and to roll between the fingers the new leaves of the sweetbrier; to see again the first anemones--the wind-children,--the mandrake's canopies, the nestling erythronium and the spring beauty, like a delicate carpet; or to seek the clintonia in its secluded haunts, and to feel the old childlike joy at sight of lady's-slippers. It is worth while to be out-of-doors all of one day, now and then, and to really _know_ what is morning and what evening; to observe the progress of the day as one might attend a spectacle, though this requires leisure and a free mind. The spirit of the woods will not lend itself to a mere fair-weather devotion. You must cast in your lot with the wild and take such weather as befalls. If you do not now and then spend a day in the snow, you miss some impressions that no fair weather can give. When you have walked for a time in the spring shower, you have a new and larger sympathy with the fields. The shining leaves, glistening twigs, jeweled cobwebs and the gentle cadence of the falling rain all tell you it is no time to stay indoors. Life in the woods sharpens the nose, the eyes, the ears. There are nose-feasts, eye-feasts, ear-feasts. What if the frost-grapes are sour--they are fair to look at. Some things are for the palate and some for the eye. The fragrance of blackberries is as delicate as the flavor, a spicy aroma, a woodsy bouquet, and to eat without seeing or smelling is to lose much. Clustered cherries, so lustrous black with their red stems, refresh the inner and the outer man. You may safely become a gourmand with respect to these wild flavors. Their virtue is of the volatile sort that will not stand bottling; it will not enter into essence or tincture. You must yourself go out and pick the cherry under a September sky and in the presence of the first glowing leaves of sumac and Virginia creeper.