ight ahead ten or a dozen
miles before turning back; for we knew nothing about taking time by
the sun, and none of us had a watch in those days. Indeed, we never
cared about time until it began to get dark. Then we thought of home
and the thrashing that awaited us. Late or early, the thrashing was
sure, unless father happened to be away. If he was expected to return
soon, mother made haste to get us to bed before his arrival. We
escaped the thrashing next morning, for father never felt like
thrashing us in cold blood on the calm holy Sabbath. But no
punishment, however sure and severe, was of any avail against the
attraction of the fields and woods. It had other uses, developing
memory, etc., but in keeping us at home it was of no use at all.
Wildness was ever sounding in our ears, and Nature saw to it that
besides school lessons and church lessons some of her own lessons
should be learned, perhaps with a view to the time when we should be
called to wander in wildness to our heart's content. Oh, the blessed
enchantment of those Saturday runaways in the prime of the spring! How
our young wondering eyes reveled in the sunny, breezy glory of the
hills and the sky, every particle of us thrilling and tingling with
the bees and glad birds and glad streams! Kings may be blessed; we
were glorious, we were free,--school cares and scoldings, heart
thrashings and flesh thrashings alike, were forgotten in the fullness
of Nature's glad wildness. These were my first excursions,--the
beginnings of lifelong wanderings.

II

A NEW WORLD

Stories of America--Glorious News--Crossing the Atlantic--The
New Home--A Baptism in Nature--New Birds--The Adventures of
Watch--Scotch Correction--Marauding Indians.

Our grammar-school reader, called, I think, "Maccoulough's Course of
Reading," contained a few natural-history sketches that excited me
very much and left a deep impression, especially a fine description of
the fish hawk and the bald eagle by the Scotch ornithologist Wilson,
who had the good fortune to wander for years in the American woods
while the country was yet mostly wild. I read his description over and
over again, till I got the vivid picture he drew by heart,--the
long-winged hawk circling over the heaving waves, every motion watched
by the eagle perched on the top of a crag or dead tree; the fish hawk
poising for a moment to take aim at a fish and plunging under the
water; the eagle with kindling eye sp