CLOSE TO NATURE.

The great forest belt, oak, ash, beech and maple, sweeps southwestward
from New England through New York and trends westward and even to the
north again till one sees the same landscape very nearly reproduced in
Wisconsin wilds. Not far from where its continuity is broken by the
southern reach of Lake Huron was a clearing cut in the wood. The land
was rolling, and through the clearing ran a vigorous creek, already
alder-fringed--for the alder follows the chopper swiftly--and
glittering with countless minnows. In the spring great pickerel came
up, too, from the deep waters, miles away, to spawn and, sometimes, to
be speared. From either side of the creek the ground ascended
somewhat, and on one bank stood a little house. It was a house
pretentious for the time, since it was framed and boarded instead of
being made of logs, but it contained only three rooms: one, the general
living-room with the brick fireplace on one side, and the others,
smaller, for sleeping apartments. So close to the edge of the forest
was the house that the sweep of the wind through the tree-tops made
constant music, and the odd, squalling bark of the black squirrel, the
chatter of the red one, the drumming of the ruffed grouse, the pipe of
the quail and the morning gobble of the wild turkey were familiar
sounds. There were deer and bear in the depths of the green ocean, and
an occasional wolverine. Sometimes at night a red fox would circle
about the clearing and bark querulously, the cry contrasting oddly with
the notes of whippoorwills and the calls of loons. The trees were
largely oak and beech and ash and birch, and in the spring there were
great splashes of white where the Juneberry trees had burst into bloom.
In summer there was a dense greenness everywhere, and in autumn a great
blaze of scarlet and yellow leaves.