Entering a slashing where the logging-road passed, we moved on, side by
side, talking in low tones. And my cousin taught me how to know these
Northern trees by bark and leaf; how to know the shrubs new to me, like
that strange plant whose root is like a human body and which the Chinese
value at its weight in gold; and the aromatic root used in beer, and the
bark of the sweet-birch whose twigs are golden-black.
Now, though the birds and many of the beasts and trees were familiar to
me in this Northern forest, yet I was constantly at fault, as I have
said. Plumage and leaf and fur puzzled me; our gray rice-bird here wore
a velvet livery of black and white and sang divinely, though with us he
is mute as a mullet; many squirrels were striped with black and white;
no rosy lichen glimmered on the tree-trunks; no pink-stemmed pines
softened sombre forest depths; no great tiger-striped butterflies told
me that the wild orange was growing near at hand; no whirring,
olive-tinted moth signalled the hidden presence of the oleander. But I
saw everywhere unfamiliar winged things, I heard unfamiliar bird-notes;
new colors perplexed me, new shapes, nay, the very soil smelled foreign,
and the water tasted savorless as the mist of pine barrens in February.
Still, my Maker had set eyes in my head and given me a nose to sniff
with; and I was learning every moment, tasting, smelling, touching,
listening, asking questions unashamed; and my cousin Dorothy seemed
never to tire in aiding me, nor did her eager delight and sympathy
abate one jot.
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