THIS THEN IS UPLAND PASTURES BEING SOME OUT-DOOR ESSAYS DEALING WITH THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT THE SPRING AND SUMMER BRING ☘ ☘ ☘ By ADELINE KNAPP [Illustration] [Illustration] Done into a book at the Roycroft Printing Shop in East Aurora, New York MDCCCXCVII Copyrighted by The Roycroft Printing Shop 1897 ❧ OF THIS EDITION THERE WERE PRINTED BUT SIX HUNDRED COPIES ☘ EACH BOOK IS SIGNED AND NUMBERED: THIS BOOK IS NUMBER _101_ When the warm rains succeed winter’s driving downpours, and the young grass begins to mantle the meadows ❦ with tender green, is the time, of all the year, to be out of doors ❧ All the woodsy places are cool and dripping and dim and delicious. A month later they will be not less beautiful, perhaps, but less approachable. The things of Nature grow sophisticated as the season advances. In the early springtime they are frank and confiding, and willingly tell the secrets of their growth to him who asks ✪ They have time, in these first beginnings of things, for friendly sociability: to show their tiny roots and bulbs, and let us study the delicate, gracious unfoldings of leaf and bud and blossom. In a few weeks they will all be too busy, keeping up with the season’s swift march, to stop and visit with the lovingest of human friends. [Illustration] Do we forget, from springtime to springtime, how lovely will be the year’s awakening? Each winter of our discontent I think that I remember, as my longing imagination looks forward, the tender charm of the springtime wonder, yet with each recurring year it comes to me as a new and unknown joy ❦