Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

See America First by Orville O. Hiestand
page 268 of 400 (67%)
of the latter "The Smile of the Great Spirit."

In the immediate locality about the lake a botanist will find
the hours passing all too swiftly, for here is indeed a place to
commune with Nature. You will find rare flowers and ferns, and
to what rich and lovely places they lead you! Along lonely
mountain roads where the golden song of the wood thrush comes
from the cool depths and the sweet, pearly notes of the winter
wren ripple down through the gloom; out along lonely forest
lakes or where trout brooks wander beneath dark hemlock trees
and lose their way in the shadows; high up on inaccessible
mountain ledges where the river plunges in a solid amber sheet
and breaks up into avalanches of shimmering rainbow mist, and
down in the marsh where acres and acres of green grass and sedge
stretch away like gleaming stars on a winter night. Going out to
commune with Nature sounds very nice, but it requires the
patience of a job, the eyes of a Burbank, the ears of a Mozart,
and the great loving heart of a Burroughs if one is to gain the
most from one's rambles. You will never learn the hymns that the
forest and waterfalls have been singing for ages; never really
know the song of the hermit thrush or the mystery and grandeur
of mountains, if you are unwilling to pay the price. You must be
willing to climb high mountains, scramble down rocky gorges and
ravines, thread the almost impenetrable bogs and marshes, endure
fierce heat, mosquito bites, hunger and toil, "but once you are
admitted into the secrets of the out-of-doors you will begin to
wonder why you ever dined in hot stuffy restaurants, spent your
holidays in smoky, dirty cities, or did any of those
conventional things that rob us of so many fine moments of
life!"
DigitalOcean Referral Badge