t I was following--even though I stopped in a low
spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom--and
came thus to the pines I was seeking. They are not great trees, nor
noble, but gnarled and angular and stunted, for the soil in that place
is poor and thin, and the winds in winter keen; but the brown blanket of
needles they spread and the shade they offer the traveller are not less
hospitable; nor the fragrance they give off less enchanting. The odour
of the pine is one I love.

I sat down there in a place I chose long ago--a place already as
familiar with pleasing memories as a favourite room--so that I wonder
that some of the notes I have written there do not of themselves exhale
the very odour of the pines.

And all about was hung a fair tapestry of green, and the earthy floor
was cleanly carpeted with brown, and the roof above was in arched
mosaic, the deep, deep blue of the sky seen through the gnarled and
knotted branches of the pines. Through a little opening among the
trees, as through a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide
meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the
open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I
heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing up
quickly I saw my early visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you
please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far out
on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, like a
sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked--a downy
woodpecker.

"Good morning, sir," I said.

He stopped for scarcely a second, cocked one eye at me, and went back to
his work again. Who was I that I should interrupt his breakfast?

And I was glad I was there, and I began enumerating, as though I were
the accredited reporter for the _Woodland Gazette_, all the good news of
the day.

"The beech trees." said aloud, "have come at last to full leafage. The
wild blackberries are ready to bloom, the swamp roses are budded. Brown
planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from
their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I
do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the
drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for Walt
the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the pine is
as sweet--"

At that moment, like a fl