Post 04069
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Many times I have come out of the subdued light of the pathless forest to enjoy these sunny openings. Often I have stood within them watching the butterflies circling in the sun or a deer and her fawns feeding quietly across, and, as I looked, I have listened to the scolding of the squirrel and the mellow ringing of the woodpecker far away in the forest. Here I have watched the coming storm, have enjoyed its presence, and in its breaking have seen the brilliant bow rest its foundations in front of the trees just across the meadow. Sometimes the moon showed its soft bow in the edge of the advancing or the breaking storm.
One evening, before the moon looked into this fairy garden, I watched a dance of crowding fireflies. They were as thick as snowflakes, but all vanished when the moonlight turned the park into fairyland. Rare shadow etchings the tall, short-armed spruces made, as they lay in light along the eastern border of this moon-filled park. A blue tower of shadow stretched from a lone spruce in the open to the forest wall beyond. As the moon rose higher, one of the dead trees in the edge of the forest appeared to rise out of the darkness and stand to watch or to serve. Then another rose, and presently two appeared side by side and edged into the light. They might have been conversing. As the night advanced, the shadow of the spruces shortened as their shadow points moved round to the north. As the moon sank behind a mountain, the dead trees settled back into the darkness, and, just before light left the park, the two broken trees moved behind a shadow and vanished. They were scarcely out of sight when the weird cries of a fox sounded from the farther edge of the woods.
Those who believe in fairies will receive the most from Nature. The unfenced wilderness is full of wild folk, full of fairy gardens and homes. With these a careless prowler is rarely welcome. Wasps and bees early gave me sharp hints on blundering, hurried intrusion, and a mother grizzly with two cubs by her side also impressed me concerning this matter. Birds sometimes made me ashamed for breaking in upon them. I did no shooting, carried only a kodak, and was careful to avoid rushing from one place to another; but refined wilderness etiquette was yet to be learned. Usually I felt welcome in the most secluded place, but one day, having wandered out into the corner of the meadow, I felt that I was not only an uninvited guest, but a most unwelcome intruder.