The old farm-houses have grown into the
landscape, and the hurrying road widens its course, and sometimes makes
a long detour, that it may unite these outlying folk with the great
world. There stands the old school-house, sacred to every traveller
who has learned that childhood is both a memory and a prophecy of
heaven. One pauses here, and hears, in the unbroken stillness, the
rush of feet that have never grown weary with travel, and the clamour
of voices through which immortal youth still shouts to the kindred
hills and skies. Into those windows Nature throws all manner of
invitations, and through them she gets only glances of recognition and
longing. There are the fields, the woods, and the hills in one
perpetual rivalry of charm; the bird sings in the bough over the
window, and on still afternoons the brook calls and calls again. Here
one feels anew the eternal friendship between childhood and Nature, and
remembers that they only can abide in that fellowship who carry into
riper years the self-forgetfulness, the sweet unconsciousness, the open
mind and heart of a child.
Chapter IV
Along the Road
II
I have found that walking stimulates observation and opens one's eyes
to movements and appearances in earth and sky, which ordinarily escape
attention.
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