The scattered stones that just peeped above the grass were not chance bowlders rolled from the hill near by, but the door-step and foundation of the one-time warehouse. The days of buying, selling, and getting gain came back, in fancy, and I was more the sturdy colonist than the effeminate descendant. But has the present no merit? We had the summer breeze that came freighted with the odors gathered from the forest and the stream, and there were thrushes rejoicing in our hearing that the hill-sides were again as Nature made them. It meant much to us to tarry in the shade of venerable trees spared by the merchants that once collected here, whose names are now utterly forgotten. Stay! there are two reminders of ancient glory. A beech that overhangs the brook has its bark well scarred, and, now beyond decipherment, there are initials of many prominent naturalists of Philadelphia. A few rods up-stream is another beech that has remained unchanged. On it can be seen the initials T. A. C., 1819; those of the celebrated paleontologist, Conrad, born near here in 1803. The shadows lengthen; the cooler hours of eventide draw on; the languid thrushes are again abroad; music fills the air. We are homeward bound and hurrying down-stream. Our minds are not so receptive as when we started. How shrunken to a few rods is every mile! Trees, flowers, and birds are scarcely heeded; but the good gathered as we went up the creek we bring away, and, once again in the dusty village street, we realize that we have but to turn our back upon the town to find the world a picture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER EIGHTH _A WINTER-NIGHT’S OUTING_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not long since I was asked—and not for the first time—if I could date the beginning of my taste for natural history pursuits or give any incident that appeared to mark a turning-point in my career. It did not seem possible to do this, on first consideration; but a recent living over of days gone by recalled an incident which happened before I was eleven years old, and, as it was almost my first regular outing that smacked of adventure, it is probable that it impressed me more forcibly than any earlier or, indeed, later events. Heavy and long-continued rains had resulted in a freshet, and then three bitter cold days had converted a wide reach of meadows into a frozen lake. Happier conditions could not have occurred in the small boy’s estimation, and, with boundless anticipation, we went skating.