their regular readers, while their interest in their new author grew
quickly to an enthusiasm. Never was a little brother or sister more
real to them than was "Peggy Mel" as she rushed into the hive laden
with stolen honey, while her neighbors gossiped about it, or the
stately elm that played sly tricks, or the log which proved to be
a good bedfellow because it did not grumble. Burroughs's way of
investing beasts, birds, insects, and inanimate things with human
motives is very pleasing to children. They like to trace analogies
between the human and the irrational, to think of a weed as a tramp
stealing rides, of Nature as a tell-tale when taken by surprise.

The quiet enthusiasm of John Burroughs's essays is much healthier than
the over-wrought dramatic action which sets all the nerves a-quiver,
--nerves already stimulated to excess by the comedies and tragedies
forced upon the daily lives of children. It is especially true of
children living in crowded cities, shut away from the woods and hills,
constant witnesses of the effects of human passion, that they need the
tonic of a quiet literature rather than the stimulant of a stormy or
dramatic one,--a literature which develops gentle feelings, deep
thought, and a relish for what is homely and homespun, rather than
a literature which calls forth excited feelings.

The essays in this volume are those in which my pupils have expressed
an enthusiastic interest, or which, after careful reading, I have
selected for future use. I have found in them few pages so hard as to
require over much study, or a too frequent use of the dictionary.
John Burroughs, more than almost any other writer of the time, has a
prevailing taste for simple words and simple constructions. "He that
runs may read" him. I have found many children under eleven years
of age who could read a whole page without hesitating. If I discover