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We were a few days away fro to a se and familiar inof the river against the drifting flatboat, and the calls of early ht, but the light in thepromised at least a brief respite fro soundly in his bunk in the flatboat cabin we shared I dressed quickly and quietly, and padded out onto the deck barefoot A deckhand nodded wearily at e excite in my breast I went directly to the rail

We had left the open grasslands behind in the night On both sides of the river, dark forest now stretched as far as the eye could see The trees were iined, and the fragrance from their needles steeped the air The recent rains had swollen the streams Silvery water cascaded down a rocky bed to join its flood with the river The sound of the ently and fragrantly in the rising sun "It’s so beautiful and restful," I said softly, for I had felt my father come out to stand on the deck behind me "And yet it is full of majesty also" When he did not reply, I turned, and was startled to find that I was still quite alone I had been so certain of a presence nearby that it was as if I had glilie, and forced a laugh from my throat Despite the e , the living presence of so ain Their silent, ancienton the river’s current a silly plaything What could reen denizens? I heard first an isolated bird’s call, and then another answered it I had one of those revelations that come as sudden as a breath I are of the forest as one thing, a network of life, both plant and aniether made a whole that stirred and breathed and lived It was like seeing the face of god, yet not the good god No, this was one of the old gods, this was Forest hilory

I sensed a world beneath the sheltering branches that crossed and wound overhead, and when a deer ee, it seemed to me that my sudden perception of the forest hat had called her forth A log, half afloat, was ja as the log sunned on it, lethargic in the cool of ht bend in the river, and startled a fa the sater and cool e They defied our presence with snorts and threatening tusks The water dripped silver from their bristly hides The sun was ales of the birds overlapped one another I felt I had never before coht hold, nor a man’s place in it as a natural creature of the world

The trees were so tall that even from the boat’s deck I craned ainst the blue sky of early autumn As we drifted with the river, the nature of the forest changed, froreen and deciduous trees gone red or gold with the frosts It filled nize the still life that seeped through their branches It was strange for a prairie-bred youth to feel such an attraction to the forest Suddenly the wide-sweeping country that had bred ed with allleaves beneath the wise old trees

When a voice spoke behind me, I startled

"What fascinates you, son? Are you looking for deer?"

I spun about, but it was only my father I was as startled to see him now as I had been surprised not to see hiiven rinned at ain?"

I shook my head slowly "No, not homesick, unless it is for a home I’ve never seen until now I don’t quite knohat draws , and wild boar co down to water But it isn’t the anih they reater part of it It’s the whole of it The forest Don’t you feel a sense of ho here? As if this is the sort of place wheretobacco into his pipe for hissmoke As he did so, he surveyed my forest in bewilderment, and then looked back at me and shook his head "No, I can’t say that I do Live in that? Can you i it would take to clear a spot for a house, let alone soloom and the shade, with a pasture full of roots to battle No, son I’ve always preferred open country, where a oes easily, and nothing stands between a man and the sky I suppose that’sI’d not want to scout a place like that, nor fight an engagehold built in such a thicket daunts me"