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Page 45
There is scarcely any place so lonely as the depths of the woods in
winter. Everything is quiet, cold and solemn. Occasionally a rabbit may
go jumping over the snow, and if the woods are really wild woods, we
may sometimes get a sight of a deer. Now and then, too, some poor
person who has been picking up bits of fallen branches for firewood may
be met bending under his load, or pulling it along on a sled. In some
parts of the country, wood-cutters and hunters are sometimes seen, but
generally there are few persons who care to wander in the woods in
winter. The open roads for sleighing, and the firm ice for skating,
offer many more inducements to pleasure-seekers.
But young people who do not mind trudging through snow, and walking
where they must make their own path-way, may find among the great black
trunks of the forest trees, and under the naked branches stretching out
overhead, many phases of nature that will be both new and
interesting--especially to those whose lives have been spent in cities.
[Illustration: THE WOODS IN WINTER.]
CRUMBS FROM OLDER READING.
II.
BY JULIA E. SARGENT.
IRVING.
Washington Irving has so many things for us, and we have heard so much
that is pleasant of him, that a good time with him may be expected; and
you would not read far in Irving's books before learning that no one
believed in "good times" more than he. The name of his home on the
Hudson would tell you that. "Sunnyside" is not the name a gloomy man
would choose.
Perhaps you will like best to hear that many of you often stand where
Irving stood, and walk the streets he knew so well, for New York City
was Irving's birthplace, and there many of the seventy-six years of his
life were spent. One of his books is a funny description of his native
town in the days of its old Dutch governors. He does not call it
Irving's, but "Knickerbocker's History of New York." And as only Irving
knew anything of Diedrich Knickerbocker outside this book, we will let
him tell you that "the old gentleman died shortly after the publication
of his work." Of course, Irving can say what he chooses about
Knickerbocker's book, so he gives it as his opinion that, "To tell the
truth, it is not a whit better than it should be." But Sir Walter
Scott, in a letter to a friend, says of these funny papers of Irving's:
"I have been employed these few evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs.
S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been
absolutely sore with laughing." All Irving's histories are not
"make-believe," and some day you will read Irving's "Life of
Columbus," and "Life of Washington," completed just before his death in
1859, without thinking of them as histories. He wrote the "Life of
Columbus" in Spain. Can you tell me why that was the best place to
write it?
Would you like to know where the boy Irving might often have been seen
when he was not devouring the contents of some book of travels? "How
wistfully," he wrote, "would I wander about the pier-heads in fine
weather? and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes!"
Not many years after, he wrote from England, "I saw the last blue line
of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon." He was then
in England, where he visited Westminster Abbey, Stratford-on-Avon, and
many other grand and famous places. Of these, and much that is neither
grand nor famous, he has written in the "Sketch-book," giving this
reason for so naming word-paintings: "As it is the fashion for modern
tourists to travel pencil in hand and bring home their portfolios
filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the
entertainment of my friends." Is it not as good as a picture to hear
this man, who had no little ones of his own, tell of "three fine,
rosy-cheeked boys," who chanced to be his companions in a stage-coach?
This is what he writes:
"They were returning home for the holidays in high glee and promising
themselves a world of enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic
plans of the little rogues. * * * They were full of anticipations of
the meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and
dog, and of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the
presents with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to
which they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with
Bantam, which I found to be a pony." When he had heard what a
remarkable animal this pony was said to be, Irving gave his attention
to other things until he heard a shout from the little travelers. Let
him tell the rest of the story.
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