It may be that I am not competent to
write the poetry of the grave. The farmer who has skimmed his
farm might perchance leave his body to Nature to be ploughed in,
and in some measure restore its fertility. We should not retard
but forward her economies.
Soon the village of Nashua was out of sight, and the woods were
gained again, and we rowed slowly on before sunset, looking for a
solitary place in which to spend the night. A few evening clouds
began to be reflected in the water and the surface was dimpled
only here and there by a muskrat crossing the stream. We camped
at length near Penichook Brook, on the confines of what is now
Nashville, by a deep ravine, under the skirts of a pine wood,
where the dead pine-leaves were our carpet, and their tawny
boughs stretched overhead. But fire and smoke soon tamed the
scene; the rocks consented to be our walls, and the pines our
roof. A woodside was already the fittest locality for us.
The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the
oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which
surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men.
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