Great Possessions

e Dawn- Look to this day! For it

ep out into the open country, lift his

the marsh begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few

olden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine and spring morning-so th

ust as I was I set of

on after sunrise-before the heat of the day had

al good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and just as I

you are!

n, looking over the taller trees to the east, had crowned the top of it with gol

e scents, for this pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour long known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. It led me still a little distance northw

xact direction of the wind, and bearing, then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it-as a hunter might surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose for an instant the scent I was following-even though I stopped in a low spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom-

pleasing memories as a favourite room-so that I wonder that some of the note

rough a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing up quickly I

ning, sir

eye at me, and went back to his work again. W

ng, as though I were the accredited reporter for

rooping elms, and the young crows cry from their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spr

hat, upon the whole, good was triumphant in this world, and that probably there was a God, and I remember going out dully afterward upon the hill, for I was weighed down with a strange depression, and the world seemed to me a hard, cold, narrow place where good must be heavily demonstrated in books. And as I sat there th

knew I should never again be qu

en out about so long on such an adventure as this, something lets go inside of me, and I come down out of the

max, but it is, nevertheless, a sober report of what happened. At the first onset of this new mood, the ham-and-eggs mood, let us call it, I was a little ashamed or abashed at the remembrance of my wild flights, and had a l

to my knees, and the tangled huckleberry bashes and sheep laurel and hardback I had passed through so joyously a short time before now cl

een out early looking for a cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them slowly up the lane,

the air,

nd a reputation for hardheadedness. He is also known as a "driver"; and has had sore trouble with a favourite s

th a vividness impossible to describe what Horace would thi

rn apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and r

selves!) before I met Horace, and the flashing vision I had of Horace's dry, superior smile finished me. Was the

" asked Horace, obs

thing to the courage required to speak aloud in broad daylig

tramp in the marsh," I s

them ultimately with the impression that they are somehow less sound, sensible, practical, than he is and he usually proves it,

down there?"

g around to see how th

n I did not reply, he continued, "Often

I said,

different now from what they

hen things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we do either one of

"I know what you a

ly impassive, but there was a

k at things and smell of things-which you wouldn't do. You think I'm a kind of impractical dreamer

d hit, for Horace looked unco

" I laughed and lo

now,

, and I don't min

eam of humour c

n't

to have it straigh

mer. I've rarely known in all my life, Horace, such a co

e lau

ye make

d with a question as good as his. It is as valuab

are you workin

d human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worryin

living-same as y

hat's you, Horace, was just making his living, that he himself had told me so, what wo

nt it straight, I'm layin' aside a

ntry we express our opinion that a friend has really a good deal more laid aside tha

oing to do with that th

ooks at me and smiles, and

est

ie in our old age, and a little something to make the childre

the even deeper admission of that faith that lies, like bed rock, in the thought of most men-that honesty and decen

r as hard as you do now, where you won't be worried by crops and weather, and where Mrs. Horace will be able to rest after so many years of care and work and sorrow-a

waa

ng for a dream, and living

if you mean

t got you beate

led br

nk that what you are working for-your dream-is somehow

ly debouched from his trenches when I o

that you are ever

h

n't lose it before, to buy peace and comfort for you, or that what you leave your children will make either you or them any ha

shake the foundations of the tabernacle. I have thought since tha

are the dreamer-and the i

, two human atoms struggling hotly with questions too large for us. The cow and the new calf were long out of sight. Horace made a motion as if

my God now. I can't wait. My barns may burn or my cattle die, or the solid bank w

ce (never mind, he knows me!). At least when I was halfway up the hill I found myself gesticulating with one clenched fist and say

life unenjoyed now is unenjoyed; a life not lived wisely now is n

! He was merely flurried for a moment in his mind, and probably thinks me now, m

tastes alter a three-mile tramp in the sharp morning air. The odour of ham and eggs, and new muff

, "you are a sigh