entrancing of all bird-notes, the songs of the thrushes,--the hermit,
and the wood-thrush, and the veery. Sometimes, but not often, you will
see the singers. I remember once, at the close of a beautiful day's
fishing on the Swiftwater, I came out, just after sunset, into a little
open space in an elbow of the stream. It was still early spring, and the
leaves were tiny. On the top of a small sumac, not thirty feet away
from me, sat a veery. I could see the pointed spots upon his breast, the
swelling of his white throat, and the sparkle of his eyes, as he poured
his whole heart into a long liquid chant, the clear notes rising and
falling, echoing and interlacing in endless curves of sound,

"Orb within orb, intricate, wonderful."

Other bird-songs can be translated into words, but not this. There is no
interpretation. It is music,--as Sidney Lanier defines it,--

"Love in search of a word."

But it is not only to the real life of birds and flowers that the little
rivers introduce you. They lead you often into familiarity with human
nature in undress, rejoicing in the liberty of old clothes, or of none
at all. People do not mince along the banks of streams in patent-leather
shoes or crepitating silks. Corduroy and home-spun and flannel are the
stuffs that suit this region; and the frequenters of these paths go
their natural gaits, in calf-skin or rubber boots, or bare-footed. The
girdle of conventionality is laid aside, and the skirts rise with the
spirits.

A stream that flows through a country of upland farms will show you many
a pretty bit of genre painting. Here is the laundry-pool at the foot of