e isolated from my own home and out of sight of
any other--what company! What occasional "tumultuous privacy" is mine! I
have frequently been obliged to step out upon the porch and request a
modulation of hilarity and a more courteous respect for my hospitality.
But this is evidently entirely a matter of point of view, and, judging
from the effects of my protests at such times, my assumed superior air
of condescension is apparently construed as a huge joke. If the
resultant rejoinder of wild volapuek and expressive pantomime has any
significance, it is plain that I am desired to understand that my exact
status is that of a squatter on contested territory.

There are those snickering squirrels, for instance! At this moment two
of them are having a rollicking game of tag on the shingled roof--a
pandemonium of scrambling, scratching, squealing, and growling--ever and
anon clambering down at the eaves to the top of a blind and peeping in
at the window to see how I like it.

A woodchuck is perambulating my porch--he was a moment ago--presumably
in renewed quest of that favorite pabulum more delectable than rowen
clover, the splintered cribbings from the legs of a certain pine bench,
which, up to date, he has lowered about three inches--a process in which
he has considered average rather than symmetry, or the comfort of the
too trusting visitor who happens to be unaware of his carpentry.

The drone of bees and the carol of birds are naturally an incessant
accompaniment to my toil--at least, in these spring and summer months.
The tall, straight flue of the chimney, like the deep diapason of an
organ, is softly murmurous with the flurry of the swifts in their
afternoon or vesper flight. There is a robin's nest close by one window,
a vireo's nest on a forked dogwood within touch of the porch, and
continual reminders of similar snuggeries of indigo-bird, chat, and
oriole within close limits, to say nothing of an ants' nest not far off,
whose proximity is soon manifest as you sit in the grass--and
immediately get up again.

Fancy a wild fox for a daily entertainment! For several days in
succession last year I spent a half-hour observing his frisky gambols
on the hillside across the dingle below my porch, as he jumped
apparently for mice in the sloping rowen-field. How quickly he
responded to my slightest interruption of voice or footfall, running to
the cover of the alders!

The little red-headed chippy, the most familiar and