s of the trees were tossed by the fresh
breezes of June. Everywhere were color, music, fragrance, motion. The
burden rolled from his heart; remorse and guilt faded like dreams; the
sad past lost its hold; the present and the future were radiant! To even
the worst of men, in such surroundings, there come moments of exemption
from the ennui and shame of life, and to this deep soul which had
issued, purified, from the fires through which it had passed, they
lengthened into glorious hours, hours such as kindled on the lips of the
poet those exultant and exquisite words:

"The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;

"The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world!"

He climbed a steep hillside, descended into a secluded and beautiful
valley, pressed his way through dense underbrush, and while the day was
still young stood on the spot where he had determined to lay the
foundation of his cabin.

Two ranges of hills came together and enclosed it as if in giant arms.
Two pure crystal springs issued from clefts in the bases of these hills,
and after flowing towards each other for perhaps a quarter of a mile,
mingled their waters in a brawling brook. It was at the point of their
junction that David had determined to erect that primitive structure
which has afforded a home to so many families in our American
wildernesses. He threw his bundle down and gazed with admiration on the
scene.

Here was the virgin and unprofaned loveliness of Nature. He felt her
charm and prostrated himself before her shrine. But he rendered to that
invisible spirit of which these forms were only an imperfect
manifestation, a worship deeper still, and by an instinct of pure
adoration lifted his face toward the sky.

Having refreshed his soul by this communion, he drank a deep draught of
the sparkling water at the point where the rivulets met. Then he threw
off his coat, took his axe in hand and selected a tree on which to begin
his attack.

It was an enormous oak which, with roots struck deep into the soil and
branches lifted high and spread wide in the air, had maintained itself
successfully against innumerable foes for perhaps a thousand years. He
reflected long before he struck, for to him as to all lovers of nature
there is a certain inviolable sacredness about a tree.

"Should you see me at the