became a part
of it. Such a morning! Such a morning!

From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land.

It was the time of all times for good odours--soon after sunrise--before
the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night.

In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon
the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could not
at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from the
general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the
moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the
faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and
just as I was saying to myself, "I've got it, I've got it!"--for it is a
great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields--I saw, near
the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple
tree in full bloom.

"So there you are!" I said.

I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its
fragrance. The sun, looking over the taller trees to the east, had
crowned the top of it with gold, so that it was beautiful to see; and it
was full of honey bees as excited as I.

A score of feet onward toward the wind, beyond the thorn-apple tree, I
passed wholly out of the range of its fragrance into another world, and
began trying for some new odour. After one or two false scents, for this
pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour long
known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. It led
me still a little distance northward to a sunny slope just beyond a bit
of marsh, and, sure enough, I found an old friend, the wild sweet
geranium, a world of it, in full bloom, and I sat down there for some
time to enjoy it fully.

Beyond that, and across a field wild with tangles of huckleberry bushes
and sheep laurel where the bluets and buttercups were blooming, and in
shady spots the shy white violet, I searched for the odour of a certain
clump of pine trees I discovered long ago. I knew that I must come upon
it soon, but could not tell just when or where. I held up a moistened
finger to make sure of the exact direction of the wind, and bearing,
then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it--as a hunter might
surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and
through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose for
an instant the scen