a neighbor. She had a nest there. I went to see her every
day till she became uneasy about it, and let me know I was no longer
welcome."

"Yonder," he continued, indicating a range of wooded hills against the
wintry sky, "is the classic region of 'Popple Town Hill,' and over there
is 'Pang Yang.'"

Some friendly spirit has preceded us to the cabin; a fire is burning in
the great stone fireplace, and mattresses and bedding are exposed to the
heat. Moving these away, the host makes room for us near the hearth. He
piles on the wood, and we are soon permeated by the warmth of the fire
and of the unostentatious hospitality of Slabsides.

How good it is to be here! The city, with its rush and roar and
complexities, seems far away. How satisfying it is to strip off the
husks and get at the kernel of things! There is more chance for high
thinking when one is big enough to have plain living. How we surround
ourselves with non-essentials, how we are dominated with the "mania
of owning things"--one feels all this afresh in looking around at this
simple, well-built cabin with its few needful things close at hand, and
with life reduced to the simplest terms. One sees here exemplified the
creed Mr. Burroughs outlined several years ago in his essay "An Outlook
upon Life":--

I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found
it good.... I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living. Many
persons know the luxury of a skin bath--a plunge in the pool or the wave
unhampered by clothing. That is the simple life--direct and immediate
contact with things, life with the false wrappings torn away--the fine
house, the fine equipage, the expensive habits, all cut off. How free
one feels, how good the elements taste, how close one gets to them, how
they fit one's body and one's soul! To see the fire that warms you, or
better yet, to cut the wood that feeds the fire that warms you; to see
the spring where the water bubbles up that slakes your thirst, and to
dip your pail into it; to see the beams that are the stay of your four
walls, and the timbers that uphold the roof that shelters you; to be in
direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to
want no extras, no shields; to find the universal elements enough; to
find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning
walk or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more
satisfying than a gift of tropic fruit; to be t