Along the highway

July 17th.

Thornycroft Farm seems to be the musical centre of the universe.

When I wake very early in the morning I lie in a drowsy sort of dream, trying to disentangle, one from the other, the various bird notes, trills, coos, croons, chirps, chirrups, and warbles. Suddenly there falls on the air a delicious, liquid, finished song; so pure, so mellow, so joyous, that I go to the window and look out at the morning world, half awakened, like myself.

There is I know not what charm in a window that does not push up, but opens its lattices out into the greenness. And mine is like a little jewelled door, for the sun is shining from behind the chimneys and lighting the tiny diamond panes with amber flashes.

A faint delicate haze lies over the meadow, and rising out of it, and soaring toward the blue is the lark, flinging out that matchless matin song, so rich, so thrilling, so lavish! As the blithe melody fades away, I hear the plaintive ballad-fragments of the robin on a curtsying branch near my window; and there is always the liquid pipe of the thrush, who must quaff a fairy goblet of dew between his songs, I should think, so fresh and eternally young is his note.

There is another beautiful song that I follow whenever I hear it, straining my eyes to the treetops, yet never finding a bird that I can identify as the singer. Can it be the—

“Ousel-cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill”?

He is called the poet-laureate of the primrose time, but I don’t know whether he sings in midsummer, and I have not seen him hereabouts. I must write and ask my dear Man of the North. The Man of the North, I sometimes think, had a Fairy Grandmother who was a robin; and perhaps she made a nest of fresh moss and put him in the green wood when he was a wee bairnie, so that he waxed wise in bird-lore without knowing it. At all events, describe to him the cock of a head, the glance of an eye, the tip-up of a tail, or the sheen of a feather, and he will name you the bird. Near-sighted he is, too, the Man of the North, but that is only for people.

The Square Baby and I have a new game.

I bought a doll’s table and china tea-set in Buffington. We put it under an apple-tree in the side garden, where the scarlet lightning grows so tall and the Madonna lilies stand so white against the flaming background. We built a little fence around it, and every afternoon at tea-time we sprinkle seeds and crumbs in the dishes, water in the tiny cups, drop a cherry in each of the fruit-plates, and have a thÉ chantant for the birdies. We sometimes invite an “invaleed” duckling, or one of the baby rabbits, or the peacock, in which case the cards read:—

Thornycroft Farm.
The pleasure of your company is requested
at a
ThÉ Chantant
Under the Apple Tree.
Music at five.

It is a charming game, as I say, but I’d far rather play it with the Man of the North; he is so much younger than the Square Baby, and so much more responsive, too.

The scent of the hay

Thornycroft Farm is a sweet place, too, of odours as well as sounds. The scent of the hay is for ever in the nostrils, the hedges are thick with wild honeysuckle, so deliciously fragrant, the last of the June roses are lingering to do their share, and blackberry blossoms and ripening fruit as well.

I have never known a place in which it is so easy to be good. I have not said a word, nor scarcely harboured a thought, that was not lovely and virtuous since I entered these gates, and yet there are those who think me fantastic, difficult, hard to please, unreasonable!

The last of June

I believe the saints must have lived in the country mostly (I am certain they never tried Hydropathic hotels), and why anybody with a black heart and natural love of wickedness should not simply buy a poultry farm and become an angel, I cannot understand.

A place in which it is so easy to be good

Living with animals is really a very improving and wholesome kind of life, to the person who will allow himself to be influenced by their sensible and high-minded ideals. When you come to think about it, man is really the only animal that ever makes a fool of himself; the others are highly civilised, and never make mistakes. I am going to mention this when I write to somebody, sometime; I mean if I ever do. To be sure, our human life is much more complicated than theirs, and I believe when the other animals notice our errors of judgment they make allowances. The bee is as busy as a bee, and the beaver works like a beaver, but there their responsibility ends. The bee doesn’t have to go about seeing that other bees are not crowded into unsanitary tenements or victimised by the sweating system. When the beaver’s day of toil is over he doesn’t have to discuss the sphere, the rights, or the voting privileges of beaveresses; all he has to do is to work like a beaver, and that is comparatively simple.