“What!” I exclaimed, turning in my tracks and addressing a small brown-leafed beech.  “What! little Hyla, are you still out?  You! with a snow-storm brewing and St. Nick due here to-morrow night?” And then from within the bush, or on it, or under it, or over it, came an answer, Peep, peep, peep! small and shrill, dropping into the silence of the woods and stirring it as three small pebbles might drop into the middle of a wide sleeping pond.

It was one of those gray, heavy days of the early winter—­one of the vacant, spiritless days of portent that wait hushed and numb before a coming storm.  Not a crow, nor a jay, nor a chickadee had heart enough to cheep.  But little Hyla, the tree-frog, was nothing daunted.  Since the last week in February, throughout the spring and the noisy summer on till this dreary time, he had been cheerfully, continuously piping.  This was his last call.

Peep, peep, peep! he piped in February; Peep, peep, peep! in August; Peep, peep, peep! in December.  But did he?

“He did just that,” replies the scientist, “and that only.”

“Not at all,” I answer.

“What authority have you?” he asks.  “You are not scientific.  You are merely a dreaming, fooling hanger-on to the fields and woods; one of those who are forever hearing more than they hear, and seeing more than they see.  We scientists hear with our ears, see with our eyes, feel with our fingers, and understand with our brains—­”

“Just so, just so,” I interrupt, “and you are a worthy but often a pretty stupid set.  Little Hyla in February, August, and December cries Peep, peep, peep! to you.  But his cry to me in February is Spring, spring, spring! And in December—­it depends; for I cannot see with my eyes alone, nor hear with my ears, nor feel with my fingers only.  You can, and so could Peter Bell.  To-day I saw and heard and felt the world all gray and hushed and shrouded; and little Hyla, speaking out of the silence and death, called Cheer, cheer, cheer!”

II

It is not because the gate is strait and the way narrow that so few get into the kingdom of the Out-of-Doors.  The gate is wide and the way is broad.  The difficulty is that most persons go in too fast.

If I were asked what virtue, above all others, one must possess in order to be shown the mysteries of the kingdom of earth and sky, I should say, there are several; I should not know which to name first.  There are, however, two virtues very essential and very hard to acquire, namely, the ability to keep quiet and to stand still.

Last summer a fox in two days took fifteen of my chickens.  I saw the rascal in broad day come down the hill to the chicken-yard.  I greatly enjoy the sight of a wild fox; but fifteen chickens a sight was too high a price.  So I got the gun and chased about the woods half the summer for another glimpse of the sinner’s red hide.  I saw him one Sunday as we were driving into the wood road from church; but never a week-day sight for all my chasing.