ld be the woods, the prairies, the
waters, the sky, the world?

"Without the shadows, too, what would be our lives? Thoughts,
thoughts and remembrances, what have we that is sweeter than
these? Have you never seen the smile upon the lips of those who
have died? They say they are looking upon the Future. Perhaps
they look also upon the Past, and therefore smile in happiness,
seeing again Youth, and Hope, and Faith, and Trust; which are
tender and beautiful things. Life has no actuality of its own,
and in material sense is only a continual change. But the
shadows of thought and of remembrance do not change. It is only
the shadows that are real."

As I pondered upon this, there passed by many pleasant pictures
upon the wall, after the way the Singing Mouse had; many
pictures of days gone by, which made me think that perhaps what
the Singing Mouse had said was true.

I could see the boy, sitting idle and a-dream, watching the
shadows drifting across the clover fields where the big bees
came. I saw the youth wandering in the woods where the squirrels
lived, loitering and looking, peering into corners full of the
secrets of the wild creatures, unraveling the delicious
mysteries which Nature ever offers to those not yet grown old.
It was a comfortable picture, full of the brilliant greens of
springtime, the mellow tints of summer, the red and russet of
autumn days, the blue and white of winter. I could hear, also,
sounds intimately associated with the scenes before me; the
bleat of little lambs, the low of cattle, the neighing of a
distant horse.

And then both sound and scene progressed, and once more as
the woods and hills grew bolder and more wild, I could hear
clearly the rifle's thin report, could note the whisper of the
secret-loving paddle, the slipping of the snow-shoe on the
snow, the clatter of the hoofs of horses, the baying of the
bell-mouthed hounds. The delights of it all came back again, and
in this varied phantom chase among the keen joys of the past,
I saw as plainly and exultantly as ever in my life, the panorama
of the brown woods, and the gray plains, and the purple
hills--saw it distinctly, with all the old vibrant joy of
youth--line for line, sound for sound, shadow for shadow, joy
for joy!

And then the Singing Mouse, without wish of mine, caused these
scenes to change into others of more quiet sort, which told not
of the fields, but of the home. In the shadows of evening,
I seemed to see a pl