The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1909-06-18
were, lifted all around. ua on vosada.

were lifted all around. us on uok9ds.
unrealized. ss5sss n
Che hot day Ne lsS 6at on ou1l ssdae
4chs under the shade Of a beech.
among the June grass aad the daisies,
Peering down into az. magical sped.
facle, and yet It was the planets hts
tory I'm petto. The great looLaso Ok tie
Universe was working there with ncfnt-
atuSe continents. 1T vas = paleopto-
loscal slimpser of xhA pre- world, as II
natnreakept ceaseless memoranda in
PhcFthand of all her monstrous cycles
Pffhanxe.c There we're. the equatorial
forests and. the prehistoric monsters.
Anyone had to do wassto get tie H.
verse scale adapted, and: the gigantic
fronds waved their prlumes, and
strange forms of life wandered
Through. Green leviathans croucheds
In corners: scurrying ternites ran
hither and tffther A slow-moving an
gleworm drew his ophidian length
along the ancient geologic reaches,
and an armored pterodactyl, in the
shapeo dragon fly, came in flaming
gorgeousness like Apollyon, and picked
up; an inhabitant or two. Here was the
Oldest Nibelungen Lied going on still,
with real dragons amid the real ele-
ments in this demiurgic workshop.
Somehow I fancy that Wagner, when
he. heard the eternal melodies, must
have been lying on his stomach and
looking at the eternal animate forces.
But what is the use of trying to get
these child-like experiences over into
literature? One must be Thoreau to
do It. When interrogated the mys-
teries like Hamlet, there was Charlie
with his round, implicit face, and he
seemed to say to me: "You want to
know the secret of nature; we'll, you
will have to become an obedient part
OF 1t, then you will know, but you will
lose the power and the desire to tell
it."
mat boy never makes any demon
strat1on over a sunrise, and he looks
at me wonderingly when begin to
cavort and effuse, He seems to be
more familiar with the processes than
l am. They are spectacles and cpl
sodes to me. Heavens, it is always
>sunrise with him; why make such a
fuss over it? And that is the way with
souls that live close to nature-they
take 1t as matter of course because
they are part of it, and that is where
Cooper made such a mistake with his
Natty Bumppo, who was always going
about attitudinizing and philosophizing
about that which such a man would
unconsciously appropriate. Even Poe,
With all his genius, failed to lie on his
stomach and look into the grasses of
the field. His Raven" and his Anna.
bel Lee,' are not arrayed like one of
these. Fancy him writing the Flow.
er de Luce" of Longfellow, or the
"Chambered Nautilus" Of Holmes or
the water Fowl of Bryant. If he had
been guided by the implicit faith of
the boy, he would have taken the ad.
vice of the guide in Dantes Inferno
when he came to some of the horrors,
Look, and pass on"
think we grew quite like Brahmins
under our mango trees. The entire
population of the woods, having come
to the conclusion that we were either
too effeminate or too orthodox to kill
anything, took advantage of our help
lessness. The squirrels came in at
the window in the morning. The wood.
chucks sat on their launches on our
wire grass. The rabbits made bur.
| rows under our hearthstone We could
hear them scolding their broods at
night and humping their heads against
the flooring. The wood-turtles crawled
in over our sill, and the young ones
dropped out of Charles pockets at
night when he hung his trousers over
chair. AS for the birds, they re-
minded me of the gamins in Frank
fort street. They gathered in front of
our door in the morning and waited to
be fed, and there was never a night
that bat or two did not manage to
worm himself into our confidence
when We were trying to sleep. 1t was
very amusing to see the complacent
contempt with which Lilah. the vel
low dog, and Gabe Hotchkiss regarded
this extraordinary tolerance. But I
think there was quiet understanding
growing up between these two and
Charlie that it was high time the kill
Ing began. One morning I surprised
the infant in the woodshed watching
Gabe at work on hickory limb. 1 was
informed that the preparation was for
"bosen-narrers." My lamb had passed
the stone age. What on earth do yo,,
want with bow and arrow?" I asked
Want to kill BIRDS" he said tri-
umphantly.
And there was the old Adam begin.
ming to peep out in my Arcadia.
The 0Atirione K;nA