Melvin and Skinner tell me of three wild geese, to their surprise seen within a week down the river,—a gander and two geese,—which must be breeding here . . .

  Went by Temple’s. For rural interest, give me the houses of the poor, with simply a cool spring, a good deal of weather-stained wood, and a natural door-stone: a house standing somewhere in nature, and not merely in an atmosphere of art . . .