But I have wandered; let us come back to books. If books, even those descriptive of nature, are out of place in the woods, meadows, or by the brook-side, when should they be read? Clearly, when the scenes they treat of are not accessible. Why should we be entertained with a description of a bird or flower, when they are both before us? It seems incredible that any one should be better pleased with another’s impressions, however cunningly told, than with those of his own senses. It is a strange mental condition that can delight in the story of a bird, and yet have no desire to see the creature; to be a witness to all the marvelous cunning that this bird exhibits. Few are those among us whose outings cover a lifetime; and when the happy days of freedom come to us, let books be kept behind, and with untrammeled eyes and ears let us drink in the knowledge that comes to us at no other time. Summer is all too short a season for other occupation than enthusiastic sight-seeing and sound-hearing. Long before autumn most of us must be back to the busy town. Business demands our work-day hours; and now, during the leisure of long winter evenings, with what delight one may recall vacation-days, reading outdoor books! The library now becomes the mountain, lake, or river. With Thoreau, Burroughs, or Jeffries at hand, one can hear the summer birds in the shrill whistle of the wind, and the babbling of summer brooks in the rattle of icy rain. For permission to reprint, in this collected form, the brief essays here brought together, the author is indebted to Messrs. Harper & Bros., D. Appleton & Co., the editors of the Christian Union, Christian at Work, and of Garden and Forest, of New York; and to the editor of the American, of Philadelphia Pa. C. C. A. TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, _September 1, 1890_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS. _PART I.—IN WINTER._ PAGE A WINTER SUNRISE 1 MIDWINTER MINSTRELSY 8 A COLD WAVE 14 THE WOODS IN WINTER 22 OLD ALMANACS 29 A QUAKER CHRISTMAS 41 A NEW PLACE TO LOAF 46 ROUND ABOUT A SPRING IN WINTER 51 A BAY-SIDE OUTING 60 FREE FOR THE DAY 66 AN OPEN WINTER 82 A FOGGY MORNING 89 THE OLD FARM’S WOOD-PILE 96 _PART II.—IN SPRING._