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Still he kept his valise packed, but the end of his life's journey came before he was ready to go West again. Hiram, as you know, came to live with me at Slabsides during the last years of his life. He had made a failure of it on the old farm, after I had helped him purchase it; nearly everything had gone wrong, indoors and out; and he was compelled to give it up.
"Hiram was with me at Slabsides," said Mr. Burroughs, "much of the time when I was writing the Whitman book, but never referred to it in any way. When it came from the press, I said to him, 'Hiram, here is the book you have heard me speak about as having cost me nearly four years' work, and which I rewrote four times."
Burroughs leads his fellows to nature, although it is sometimes, doubtless, with the feeling that one can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink; for of all the sightseers that journey to Slabsides there must of necessity be many that "Oh!" and "Ah!" a good deal, but never really get further in their study of nature than that.
We will have an old-fashioned time; I will roast a duck in the pot; it will be great fun." This invitation came from Mr. Burroughs in 1911 to friends who proposed to call on him early in December. Riverby was closed for the season, its occupants tarrying in Poughkeepsie, but, ever ready for an adventure, the Sage of Slabsides proposed a winter picnic at his cabin in the hills.
Some friendly spirit has preceded us to the cabin; a fire is burning in the great stone fireplace, and mattresses and bedding are exposed to the heat. Moving these away, the host makes room for us near the hearth. He piles on the wood, and we are soon permeated by the warmth of the fire and of the unostentatious hospitality of Slabsides. How good it is to be here!
"Mr. Burroughs, why don't you PAINT things?" asked a little boy of four, who had been spending a happy day at Slabsides, but who, at nightfall, while nestling in the author's arms, seemed suddenly to realize that this rustic house was very different from anything he had seen before.
Troops of Vassar girls come to visit the hermit of Slabsides, and are taken to these falls; nature-lovers, and those who only think themselves nature-lovers, come from far and near; Burroughs clubs, boys' schools, girls' schools, pedestrians, cyclists, artists, authors, reporters, poets, young and old, renowned and obscure, from April till November seek out this lover of nature, who is a lover of human nature as well, who gives himself and his time generously to those who find him.
Among them were two girls who had visited me at my cabin, "Slabsides," while they were at Vassar. Wide as is the world, the traveler is pretty sure to strike threads of relation with his home country wherever he goes.
For most of us who have felt the charm, of his lyrical prose, both in his outdoor books and in his "Indoor Studies," were familiar with him as an author long before we knew there was a Slabsides long before there was one, in fact, since he has been leading his readers to nature for fifty years, while the picturesque refuge we are now coming to associate with him has been in existence only about fifteen years.
Hornaday is a better naturalist than he is a comparative psychologist." Exit Mr. Hornaday. Who the devil is Mr. Hornaday, anyway? The sage of Slabsides has spoken. When Darwin concluded that animals were capable of reasoning in a rudimentary way, Mr.
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