nding of my animal neighbors on
all sides, and I began to look forward to the meetings of the Natural
History Club.

The club had frequent field excursions, in addition to the regular
meetings. At the seashore, in the woods, in the fields; at high
tide and low tide, in summer and winter, by sunlight and by moonlight,
the marvellous story of orderly nature was revealed to me, in
fragments that allured the imagination and made me beg for more. Some
of the members of the club were school-teachers, accustomed to
answering questions. All of them were patient; some of them took
special pains with me. But nobody took me seriously as a member of the
club. They called me the club mascot, and appointed me curator of the
club museum, which was not in existence, at a salary of ten cents a
year, which was never paid. And I was well pleased with my unique
position in the club, delighted with my new friends, enraptured with
my new study.

[Illustration: THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD
EXCURSIONS]

More and more, as the seasons rolled by, and page after page of the
book of nature was turned before my eager eyes, did I feel the wonder
and thrill of the revelations of science, till all my thoughts became
colored with the tints of infinite truths. My days arranged themselves
around the meetings of the club as a centre. The whole structure of my
life was transfigured by my novel experiences outdoors. I realized,
with a shock at first, but afterwards with complacency, that books
were taking a secondary place in my life, my irregular studies in
natural history holding the first place. I began to enjoy the Natural
History rooms; and I was obliged to admit to myself that my heart hung
with a more thrilling suspense over the fate of some beans I had
planted in a window box than over the fortunes of the classic hero
about whom we were reading at school.

But for all my enthusiasm about animals, plants, and rocks,--for all
my devotion to the Natural History Club,--I did not become a thorough
naturalist. My scientific friends were right not to take me
seriously. Mr. Winthrop, in his delightfully frank way, called me a
fraud; and I did not resent it. I dipped into zooelogy, botany,
geology, ornithology, and an infinite number of other ologies, as the
activities of the club or of particular members of it gave me
opportunity, but I made no systematic study of any branch of science;
at least not until I went to college. For wha