I was thinking of the big boulders that join and make a hole we called "the cave," over which Hawthorne's fancy made the apostle Eliot preach to the Indians, giving it the name of "Eliot's Pulpit," and describing it afterward so prettily in his "Blithedale Romance"; a book of which Emerson speaks, and truly, as "that disagreeable story," and of some of the sketches in it as "quite unworthy of his genius." And I was thinking of the retired little dell in the far "Wisconsin Lot," where doubtless he and others have taken their volumes and note-books, writing and reading to the music of the hum of the bees, the sighing pines and the redbreasts.
I was thinking of the unfortunate humanity who lived outside of our charmed circle, and how little they knew of the magnificent future the infinite Father has prepared for them and their descendants, and how from the beginning the plan has been coördinate with man's help to his brother man and his sister woman; and my whole soul was penetrated, even as it is now, with pity for the blindness, mental and physical, that cannot see how to use the gifts the Infinite holds out, patiently waiting for us to take from his indulgent hands. I was thinking how much, how very much, of all our suffering comes from human ignorance only.
I heard all the songs of nature beside the birds. In the spring I heard the toads and frogs and turtles making merriment in their little sitting-rooms in the pools of water in low places. In the summer I heard the locusts sing and the lazy croak of bullfrog, bearing the relation of trombone in the orchestra of nature to the other musicians, whilst the fireflies were dancing in mid-air all around him--he winking at them with those wondrous projecting eyes. In the autumn the cricket was my favorite, and he was kind enough at times to come into our musical parlor to rival Mary and Jennie and Helen. But in the winter it was only the kindly birds that came to us--sweet chickadee and the talkative crows. None of us injured the birds. I do not remember ever seeing a gun on the place. Thus went the seasons--spring, summer, autumn, winter.
I loved the daily round of life. All were kind to me. I was well mentally and physically. I was in the bud of youth. I was like the pink rhodoras in spring, callow of leaf or fruit but brightly covered with promising blossoms. There remained one thing for me--to know I was happy. Did I know it? Yes, I did. I realized it then as now. I was not a victim of unconscious joy, to awaken to it at some future period. It was not to me a dream. The cup was full! I was truly happy!