it from post to shingle. And then, when I had tacked the rose in
place again, the little old window opening above it made that side
of my house look like a boy in his Saturday hat and Sunday breeches.
So in went a large new window; and now these changes have mysteriously
offended Mrs. Walter, who says the town is laughing at me for
trying to outdo the Cobbs. The highest animal is the only one who
is divinely gifted with such noble discernment. But I am not sorry
to have my place look its best. When they see it, they will perhaps
understand why I was not to be driven out by a golden cracker on
their family whip. They could not have bought my little woodland
pasture, where for a generation has been picnic and muster and
Fourth-of-July ground, and where the brave fellows met to volunteer
for the Mexican war. They could not have bought even the heap of
brush back of my wood-pile, where the brown thrashers build.



V


In May I am of the earth earthy. The soul loses its wild white
pinions; the heart puts forth its short, powerful wings, heavy with
heat and color, that flutter, but do not lift it off the ground.
The month comes and goes, and not once do I think of lifting my
eyes to the stars. The very sunbeams fall on the body as a warm
golden net, and keep thought and feeling from escape. Nature uses
beauty now not to uplift, but to entice. I find her intent upon
the one general business of seeing that no type of her creatures
gets left out of the generations. Studied in my yard full of birds,
as with a condensing-glass of the world, she can be seen enacting