The Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Maples, by John Burroughs

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Title: Under the Maples

Author: John Burroughs

Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30246]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE MAPLES ***

Produced by Chris Curnow, Turgut Dincer, Joseph Cooper and
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| Transcriber's Note: |
| Alternative spelling for chippie/chippy |
| has been retained as it appears in the |
| original publication. |
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UNDER THE MAPLES

[Illustration: _Copyright, 1921, by Charles F. Lummis.
All rights reserved._

THE LAST PORTRAIT OF JOHN BURROUGHS

(March 23, 1921; six days before his death)
Made at Pasadena Glen, California, by his long-time
friend Charles F. Lummis]

UNDER THE MAPLES

BY
JOHN BURROUGHS

[Illustration: The Riverside Press]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

It was while sitting in his hay-barn study in the Catskills and looking
out upon the maple woods of the old home farm, and under the maples at
Riverby, that the most of these essays were written, during the last two
years of the author's life. And it was to the familiar haunts near his
Hudson River home that his thoughts wistfully turned while wintering in
Southern California in 1921. As he pictured in his mind the ice breaking
up on the river in the crystalline March days, the return of the birds,
the first hepaticas, he longed to be back among them; he was there in
spirit, gazing upon the river from the summer-house, or from the veranda
of the Nest, or seated at his table in the chestnut-bark Study, or busy
with his sap-gathering and sugar-making.

Casting about for a title for this volume, the vision of maple-trees and
dripping sap and crisp March days playing constantly before his mind,
one day while sorting and shifti