on and dwell on his own land
with the assurance of a safe support.

He has never been a great traveler. Still, he has been abroad twice
and has recently made a trip to Alaska. Lesser excursions have taken
him to Virginia and Kentucky, and to Canada, and he has camped in
Maine and the Adirondacks. But the district that he knows best and
that he puts oftenest into his nature studies is his home country in
the Catskills and the region about his "Riverby" farm. Very little of
his writing, however, has been done in the house in which he lives.
This was never a wholly satisfactory working-place. He felt he must
get away from all conventionalities, and he early put up on the
outskirts of his vineyards a little bark-covered study, to which it
has been his habit to retire for his indoor thinking and writing. He
still uses this study more or less, and often in the summer evenings
sits in an easy-chair, under an apple-tree just outside the door, and
listens to the voices of Nature while he looks off across the Hudson.

But the spot that at present most engages his affection is a reclaimed
woodland swamp, back among some rocky hills, a mile or two from the
river. A few years ago the swamp was a wild tangle of brush and
stumps, fallen trees and murky pools. Now it has been cleared and
drained, and the dark forest mould produces wonderful crops of celery,
sweet corn, potatoes, and other vegetables. On a shoulder of rock near
the swamp borders Burroughs has built a rustic house, sheathed outside
with slabs, and smacking in all its arrangements of the woodlands and
of the days of pioneering. It has an open fireplace, where the flames
crackle cheerfully on chilly evenings, and over the fireplace coals
most of the cooking is done; but in really hot weather an oil stove
serves instead.

On the other side of the hollow a delightfully cold spring bubbles
forth, and immediately back of the house is a natural cavern which
makes an ideal storage place for perishable foods. The descent to the
cavern is made by a rude ladder, and the sight of Burroughs coming and
going between it and the house has a most suggestive touch of the wild
and romantic.

He is often at "Slabsides"--sometimes for weeks or months at a time,
though he always makes daily visits to the valley to look after the
work in his vineyards and to visit the post-office at the railway
station. He is a leisurely man, to whom haste and the nervous pursuit
of wealth or fame are tot