d, and I could not get over
the idea that they said: "Fetch me yonder bow!" to each other; or, "Go
slaughter me a ten-tined buck!" I felt that they were fortunate in not
being held down to hours like the rest of us. Out of bed at six-thirty,
at table by seven, tidying bedroom at seven-thirty, dusting sitting-room
at eight, on way to school at eight-thirty, was not for "the likes of
them!" Only we, slaves of respectability and of an inordinate appetite
for order, suffered such monotony and drabness to rule. I knew the
Madigan boys could go fishing whenever they pleased, that the Madigan
girls picked the blackberries before any one else could get out to them,
that every member of the family could pack up and go picnicking for days
at a time, and that any stray horse was likely to be ridden bareback,
within an inch of its life, by the younger members of the family.

Only once however, did I have a chance to meet one of these modern
Visigoths face to face, and the feelings aroused by that incident
remained the darling secret of my youth. I dared tell no one, and I
longed, yet feared, to have the experience repeated. But it never was!
It happened in this way:

On a certain Sunday afternoon in May, my father and mother and I went to
Emmons' Woods. To reach Emmons' Woods, you went out the back door,
past the pump and the currant bushes, then down the path to the
chicken-houses, and so on, by way of the woodpile, to the south gate.
After that, you went west toward the clover meadows, past the house
where the Crazy Lady lived--here, if you were alone, you ran--and then,
reaching the verge of the woods, you took your choice of climbing a
seven-rail fence or of walking a quarter of a mile till you came to the
bars. The latter was much better for the lace on a Sunday petticoat.

Once in Emmons' Woods, there was enchantment. An eagle might come--or
a blue heron. There had been bears in Emmons' Woods--bears with rolling
eyes and red mouths from which their tongues lolled. There was one place
for pinky trillium, and another for gentians; one for tawny adders'
tongues, and another for yellow Dutchman's breeches. In the sap-starting
season, the maples dripped their luscious sap into little wooden cups;
later, partridges nested in the sun-burned grass. There was no lake or
river, but there was a pond, swarming with a vivacious population, and
on the hard-baked clay of the pond beach the green beetles aired their
splendid changeable sil