as shed bark and small limbs, silently, patiently waiting,
final dissolution. With the coming of cool autumn winds it has
begun to complain. On rainy days especially I have heard this low
lonesome voice crying softly to itself through the dusk and been
at a loss to know what creature made it. Foxes in the mating
season along about St. Valentine's day make strange outcry in the
wood, but at this time of year the fox if he speaks at all simply
barks. A raccoon might whimper thus but there were some cries that
no coon ever made. Once I stalked it for a lost child and I was
long in locating the exact spot whence it came. After all it was
only the complaining of the old tree as it rubbed on its support
in the swaying wind, but it voiced all the loneliness of the
good-byes which a thousand bright creatures have been saying to the
wood these pleasant September days.

CHAPTER XVIII

MYSTICAL PASTURES

Two century-old pasture pines shelter my favorite sleeping spot in
the pasture, and croon solemn, mystical tunes all night long. If I
could but, with my dull ear grown finer, some day learn to
interpret these I might grow wise with the yet unfathomed wisdom
of the universe. Their runes are not of the gentle, vivid life
that thrills below them. Before the little creatures of the
pasture world were created, before pines grew upon earth, the
words they sing were set to the sagas of vast space, rhythmic
runes of unremembered ages taught by the great winds of the world
to these patriarchs that seem to tell them over and over lest they
forget. They tower virid and virile. They stretch wide arms over
the pasture people in benediction and sheltering love, but they
are not of them. The reading of the deep riddle of the universe
has made them prophets and seers and they dwell alone in their
dignity. I may make my home beneath their sheltering shade, caress
their rugged gray trunks and fall asleep to the mystical murmur of
their voices, but I can never be intimate with them.

There is nothing of this aloofness about the other pasture people.
The younger pines do not whisper solemn riddles, but are gently
friendly without mystery, and so are many of the myriad creatures
that crowd the spaces boldly or dwell quietly in unsuspected
seclusion. Of all the outdoor world the pasture is the most
friendly place, yet it is not obtrusively so and you must dwell in
it long before you know many of even your elbow neighbors by
sight. If you