The Claim Jumpers

"And in winter?" murmured the girl. Her eyes were shining.

"In the winter the wind would howl through the 'big tree,' and

everything would be bleak and cold out doors. We would be inside, of

course, and we would sit on the fur rug in front of the fireplace,

while the evening passed by, watching the 'geese in the chimney' flying

slowly away."

"'Suppose' some more," she begged dreamily. "I love it. It rests me."

She clasped her hands back of her head and closed her eyes.

The young man looked quietly about him.

"This is a wild and beautiful country," said he, "but it lacks

something. I think it is the soul. The little wood lots of the East

have so much of it." He paused in surprise at his own thoughts. His

only experiences in the woods East had been when out picnicking, or

berrying, and he had never noticed these things. "I don't know as I

ever thought of it there," he went on slowly, as though trying to be

honest with her, "but here it comes to me somehow or another." A little

fly-catcher shot up from the frond below, poised a moment, and dropped

back with closed wings.

"Do you know the birds?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not," he admitted; "I don't really know much about

Nature, but I love it, and I'm going to learn more. I know only the

very common birds, and one other. Did you ever hear the hermit thrush

sing?"

"Never."

"Oh!" he cried in sudden enthusiasm, "then there is another 'suppose'

for us, the best of all."

"I love the dear old house!" she objected doubtfully.

"But the hermit thrush is better. The old country minister took me to

hear him one Sunday afternoon and I shall never forget it."

She glanced at his animated face through half-closed eyes.

"Tell me," she urged softly.

"'Suppose' we were back East," he began, "and in the country, just

about this time of year. We would wait until the afternoon--why! just

about this time, when the sun is getting low. We would push through the

bushes at the edge of the woods where the little tinkling birds sing in

the fence corners, and would enter the deep high woods where the trees

are tall and still. The moss is thick and soft in there, and there are

little pools lying calm and dark, and there is a kind of a hush in

the air--not silence, you know, but like when a big crowd of people are

keeping still. And then we would walk very carefully, and speak low,

and we would sit by the side of a fallen log and wait. After a while

the thrush would sing, a deep note, with a thrill in it, like a bell

slow and solemn. When you hear it you too feel a thrill as though you

had heard a great and noble thought. Why, it is almost holy!"