of strength; how puny the birches
that now grow out of its roots! You remember the great canoe birches by
the wilderness river, whiter than the little tent that nestled beneath
them, their wide bark banners waving in the wind, soft as the flutter of
owls' wings that swept among them, shadow-like, in the twilight. A vague
regret steals over you that our own wilderness is gone, and with it most
of the shy folk that loved its solitudes.

Suddenly there is a rustle in the leaves. Something stirs by the old
stump. A moment ago you thought it was only a brown root; now it runs,
hides, draws itself erect--Kwit, kwit, kwit! and with a whirring rush of
wings and a whirling eddy of dead leaves a grouse bursts up, and
darts away like a blunt arrow, flint-tipped, gray-feathered, among the
startled birch stems. As you follow softly to rout him out again, and to
thrill and be startled by his unexpected rush, something of the
Indian has come unbidden into your cautious tread. All regret for the
wilderness is vanished; you are simply glad that so much wildness still
remains to speak eloquently of the good old days.

It is this element of unconquerable wildness in the grouse, coupled with
a host of early, half-fearful impressions, that always sets my heart to
beating, as to an old tune, whenever a partridge bursts away at my feet.
I remember well a little child that used to steal away into the still
woods, which drew him by an irresistible attraction while as yet their
dim arches and quiet paths were full of mysteries and haunting terrors.
Step by step the child would advance into the shadows, cautious as a
wood mouse, timid as a rabbit. Suddenly a swift rustle and a thunderous
rush of something from the ground that first set the child's heart to
beating wildly, and then reached his heels in a fearful impulse which
sent him rushing out of the woods, tumbling headlong over the old gray
wall, and scampering halfway across the pasture before he dared halt
from the terror behind. And then, at last, another impulse which always
sent the child stealing back into the woods again, shy, alert, tense as
a watching fox, to find out what the fearful thing was that could make
such a commotion in the quiet woods.

And when he found out at last--ah, that was a discovery beside which
the panther's kittens are as nothing as I think of them. One day in the
woods, near the spot where the awful thunder used to burst away, the
child heard a cluck and a kw