I believe I was whistling when I got back to the buggy
seat. I know I slapped the horse's rump with my lines
and sang out, "Get up, Peter, we still have a matter of
nearly thirty miles to make."
The road becomes pretty much a mere trail here, a rut-track,
smooth enough in the rut, where the wheels ran, but rough
for the horse's feet in between.
To the left I found the first untilled land. It stretched
far away to the west, overgrown with shrub-willow,
wolf-willow and symphoricarpus--a combination that is
hard to break with the plow. I am fond of the silver
grey, leathery foliage of the wolf-willow which is so
characteristic of our native woods. Cinquefoil, too, the
shrubby variety, I saw in great numbers--another one of
our native dwarf shrubs which, though decried as a weed,
should figure as a border plant in my millionaire's park.
And as if to make my enjoyment of the evening's drive
supreme, I saw the first flocks of my favourite bird,
the goldfinch. All over this vast expanse, which many
would have called a waste, there were strings of them,
chasing each other in their wavy flight, twittering on
the downward stretch, darting in among the bushes, turning
with incredible swiftness and sureness of wing the shortest
of curves about a branch, and undulating away again to
where they came from.
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