USIAST.

To a brain wearied by the din of the city, the clatter of wheels, the
jingle of street cars, the discord of bells, the cries of venders, the
ear-splitting whistles of factory and shop, how refreshing is the
heavenly stillness of the country! To the soul tortured by the sight of
ills it cannot cure, wrongs it cannot right, and sufferings it cannot
relieve, how blessed to be alone with nature, with trees living free,
unfettered lives, and flowers content each in its native spot, with
brooks singing of joy and good cheer, with mountains preaching divine
peace and rest!

Thus musing one evening, soon after my arrival at a lone farmhouse in
the heart of the Green Mountains, I seated myself at the window to make
acquaintance with my neighbors. Not the human; I wished for a time to
turn away from the world of people, to find rest and recreation in the
world outside the walls of houses.

My room was a wing lately added to the side of the cottage farthest
from the life that went on in it, from the kitchen and dairy, from the
sight of barns and henhouses. It was, consequently, as solitary as it
could be, and yet retain a slight hold upon humanity. It was connected
with the family and farm life by two doors, which I could shut at will,
and be alone with nature, and especially with the beloved birds.

From my window I looked upon a wide view over the road and the green
fields, and across the river to a lovely range of the Green Mountains,
with one of the highest peaks in the State as a crown. Close at hand was
a bank, the beginning of a mountain spur. It was covered from the road
up with clumps of fresh green ferns and a few young trees,--a maple or
two, half a dozen graceful young hemlocks, and others.

The top of the bank, about as high as my window, was thick with daisy
buds, which I had caught that day beginning to open their eyes,
sleepily, one lash at a time; and on looking closely I saw ranks of them
still asleep, each yellow eye carefully covered with its snow-white
fringes. When the blossoms were fully opened, a few days later, my point
of view--on a level--made even

"The daisy's frill a wondrous newness wear;"

for I saw only the edges of the flower faces turned to the sky, while
the stems were visible down to the ground, and formed a Lilliputian
forest in which it were easy to imagine tiny creatures spending days as
secluded and as happy as I enjoyed in my forest of beech and birch and
maple, which