RIES: The Life of the
Fields.

It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as
you will see, was mainly his.

We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favourite fashion,
following out that pleasant text which tells us to "behold the fowls
of the air." There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in
acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors
commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept,
through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills Lodge,
where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the
brambly shores of the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and
song-sparrows were settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment
of forest across the road, where rare warblers flitted silently among
the tree-tops. The light beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we
came out from their shadow into the widespread glow of the sunset,
on the edge of a grassy hill, overlooking the long valley of the Gale
River, and uplooking to the Franconia Mountains.

It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new
tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth
seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days.
A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the
swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the river-fields
without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give
thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere
absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or labouring in
the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke rising lazily
from the farmhouse chimneys, or the family groups sitting under the
maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath atmosphere over the
world.

Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns the
mountains?"

I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber
companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him
their names, adding that there were probably a good many different
owners, whose claims taken all together would cover the whole Franconia
range of hills.

"Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see what
difference that makes. Everybody can look at them."

They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks
outlined against the sky, the vast ridges o