w birds and other creatures, and the trees and flowers I had
not known before. By the way, there was one feast at the White House
which stands above all others in my memory--even above the time when
I lured Joel Chandler Harris thither for a night, a deed in which to
triumph, as all who knew that inveterately shy recluse will testify.
This was "the bear-hunters' dinner." I had been treated so kindly by my
friends on these hunts, and they were such fine fellows, men whom I was
so proud to think of as Americans, that I set my heart on having them
at a hunters' dinner at the White House. One December I succeeded; there
were twenty or thirty of them, all told, as good hunters, as daring
riders, as first-class citizens as could be found anywhere; no finer set
of guests ever sat at meat in the White House; and among other game
on the table was a black bear, itself contributed by one of these same
guests.

When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the "big
trees," the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite, with
John Muir. Of course of all people in the world he was the one with whom
it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite. He told me that when
Emerson came to California he tried to get him to come out and camp with
him, for that was the only way in which to see at their best the majesty
and charm of the Sierras. But at the time Emerson was getting old and
could not go. John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules
to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days' trip. The first
night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great
Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in color and in symmetry,
rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was
conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages. Hermit thrushes sang
beautifully in the evening, and again, with a burst of wonderful music,
at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike
John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew
little about them. The hermit-thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees
and the flowers and the cliffs everything. The only birds he noticed
or cared for were some that were very conspicuous, such as the
water-ousels--always particular favorites of mine too. The second night
we camped in a snow-storm, on the edge of the canyon walls, under the
spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir; and next day we we