Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or unnecessary:  and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place.  Some smells, evil at first, become through usage not unpleasant.  I once stopped with a wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside when I came in.  He said it was “good and strong” and sniffed it with appreciation.  I agreed with him that it was strong.  To him it was not unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge.  All nature seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of decay she is speeding decay:  and a manured field produces later the best of all odours.  Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire an evil odour:  and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be plenty of sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of men.  If they are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid.

CHAPTER III

FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!

“Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn—­
Look to this day!  For it is Life,
The very Life of Life!”

On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, lift his head to the sky—­and follow his nose....

It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh begin.  The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was fresh and clear and cool.  High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence.

It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, so airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine and spring morning—­so that one’s spirit dissolved in it, became a part of it.  Such a morning!  Such a morning!

From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land.

It was the time of all times for good odours—­soon after sunrise—­before the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night.

In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind.  I could not at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from the general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the moor-like open land.  Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and just as I was saying to myself, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”—­for it is a great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields—­I saw, near the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple tree in full bloom.

“So there you are!” I said.