There is
a superior spiritual quality in the warmth of a fire of h-oak, h-ash,
and even h-ellum gathered from your own acre, especially if the acre is
very small and has contour paths. By a fire of my own acre's "dead and
down" I write these lines. I never buy cordwood.
Only half the grove has required these paths, the other half being down
on the flat margin of the river, traversed by a cart-road at least half
a century old, though used by wheels hardly twice a year; but in the
three acres where lie the contour paths there is now three-fifths of a
mile of them, not a rod of which is superfluous. And then I have two
examples of another kind of path: paths with steps; paths which for good
and lawful reasons cannot allow you time to go around on the "five per
cent" grade but must cut across, taking a single ravine lengthwise, to
visit its three fish-pools.
These steps, and two short retaining walls elsewhere in the grove, are
made of the field stones of the region, uncut. All are laid "dry" like
the ordinary stone fences of New England farms, and the walls are built
with a smart inward batter so that the winter frosts may heave them year
after year, heave and leave but not tumble them down. I got that idea
from a book. Everything worth while on my acre is from books except
what two or three professional friends have from time to time dropped
into my hungry ear.
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