ew-plowed fields--and the odours, and the sounds of the country--all
cropped by me. How little the fences keep me out: I do not regard
titles, nor consider boundaries. I enter either by day or by night, but
not secretly. Taking my fill, I leave as much as I find.

And thus standing upon the highest hill in my upper pasture, I thought
of the quoted saying of a certain old abbot of the middle ages--"He
that is a true monk considers nothing as belonging to him except a
lyre."

What finer spirit? Who shall step forth freer than he who goes with
nothing save his lyre? He shall sing as he goes: he shall not be held
down nor fenced in.

With a lifting of the soul I thought of that old abbot, how smooth his
brow, how catholic his interest, how serene his outlook, how free his
friendships, how unlimited his whole life. Nothing but a lyre!

So I made a covenant there with myself. I said: "I shall use, not be
used. I do not limit myself here. I shall not allow possessions to come
between me and my life or my friends."

For a time--how long I do not know--I stood thinking. Presently I
discovered, moving slowly along the margin of the field below me, the
old professor with his tin botany box. And somehow I had no feeling that
he was intruding upon my new land. His walk was slow and methodical, his
head and even his shoulders were bent--almost habitually--from looking
close upon the earth, and from time to time he stooped, and once he
knelt to examine some object that attracted his eye. It seemed
appropriate that he should thus kneel to the earth. So he gathered _his_
crop and fences did not keep him out nor titles disturb him. He also was
free! It gave me at that moment a peculiar pleasure to have him on my
land, to know that I was, if unconsciously, raising other crops than I
knew. I felt friendship for this old professor: I could understand him,
I thought. And I said aloud but in a low tone, as though I were
addressing him:

--Do not apologise, friend, when you come into my field. You do not
interrupt me. What you have come for is of more importance at this
moment than corn. Who is it that says I must plow so many furrows this
day? Come in, friend, and sit here on these clods: we will sweeten the
evening with fine words. We will invest our time not in corn, or in
cash, but in life.--

I walked with confidence down the hill toward the professor. So
engrossed was he with his employment that he did not see me until I was
wit