owly tipped with him,
and he settled down into the river.
Among such scenes as these the boy pursued his education, learning many
things that are not taught in colleges; learning to take the weather
as it comes, wet or dry, and fortune as it falls, good or bad;
learning that a meal which is scanty fare for one becomes a banquet for
two--provided the other is the right person; learning that there is some
skill in everything, even in digging bait, and that what is called luck
consists chiefly in having your tackle in good order; learning that a
man can be just as happy in a log shanty as in a brownstone mansion, and
that the very best pleasures are those that do not leave a bad taste
in the mouth. And in all this the governor was his best teacher and his
closest comrade.
Dear governor, you have gone out of the wilderness now, and your steps
will be no more beside these remembered little rivers--no more, forever
and forever. You will not come in sight around any bend of this clear
Swiftwater stream where you made your last cast; your cheery voice
will never again ring out through the deepening twilight where you are
lingering for your disciple to catch up with you; he will never again
hear you call: "Hallo, my boy! What luck? Time to go home!" But there is
a river in the country where you have gone, is there not?--a river with
trees growing all along it--evergreen trees; and somewhere by those
shady banks, within sound of clear running waters, I think you will be
dreaming and waiting for your boy, if he follows the trail that you have
shown him even to the end.
1895.
AMPERSAND
"It is not the walking merely, it is keeping yourself in tune for a
walk, in the spiritual and bodily condition in which you can find
entertainment and exhilaration in so simple and natural a pastime. You
are eligible to any good fortune when you are in a condition to enjoy
a walk. When the air and water taste sweet to you, how much else will
taste sweet! When the exercise of your limbs affords you pleasure, and
the play of your senses upon the various objects and shows of Nature
quickens and stimulates your spirit, your relation to the world and
to yourself is what it should be,--simple, and direct, and
wholesome."--JOHN BURROUGHS: Pepacton.
The right to the name of Ampersand, like the territory of Gaul in those
Commentaries which Julius Caesar wrote for the punishment of schoolboys,
is divided into three parts. It belongs to
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