Their music charms me like the voice of love,
And chains me to this wild, uncultivated grove,
Where spring flowers vary their beauty and bloom,
And spread their morning and evening perfume.
How beautiful the hills and forest land,
Where Nature spreads her loam and fertile sand;
Where seeds long-buried in the drifting snow
Spring forth in beauty when the south winds blow.
The sun, with golden beams and brighter rays,
Shines forth to warm the earth and lengthen out the days.
He there built his camp-fire, and reared a rude cabin to shelter his family, until he could build a more permanent residence.
Here Mayall rested for a few days, charmed with the music of the woods, and the water-fowls that had stopped along the stream to lay their eggs and rear their young. Mayall then pursued his journey up the stream until he reached its utmost spring among the distant hills, and then bent his course eastward among the highlands of that region, where he found the beautiful little lakes so graphically described by the Indian, stored with fish, and covered with water-fowls during the summer season. All the wilds of the forest appeared more beautiful than he had anticipated.
After exploring the hills and valleys for a few days, during which time he never saw a human being, Mayall resolved to return once more to his wife and children. As he passed down the valley he stopped at the rude cabin he had erected, and passed the night in quiet sleep. Mayall declared that in his chosen bower Nature appeared fresh from the hand of Omnipotence. He described one of the lakes he had seen as the most beautiful sheet of water that human eye ever saw, surrounded with a belt of white sand, where the buck, the doe, and the spotted fawn came and slaked their thirst from the crystal waters of the lake, unmolested by man, and fed tamely upon its grassy shores; where the wild rose, queen of bowers, shed her perfume, and the lily displayed her spots of beauty, as second in rank among the flowers; the third in magnitude and adorning was the wild honeysuckle, with all her tints of beauty. These encircled the snow-white sands upon its beautiful shores, whilst the low undertone of its waves kept time to the music of the grove.
Mayall was enchanted with the beauties of Nature around him, and made his bed at night under a low branching tree, covered with a wild grape-vine, so nicely tied and coiled by Nature that it served every purpose of a tent. Mayall made his evening meal on trout he took from the lake, and laid down to sleep upon the wild, enchanted shores of an earthly paradise. His sleep was quiet and undisturbed. He awoke with the first rays of rosy morn, and listened to the lovely song of Nature's harmonists, the songsters of the grove.
After Mayall left his cabin on Canada Creek he bent his course for home, where he arrived after three tedious days' journey along an Indian path, fording streams, and crossing hills and ravines, and was once more in the bosom of his family. All were glad to see him, and listened with rapture to the glowing account he gave of a country so wild and beautiful, until Mayall reached the story of the proposed marriage of his young son with the daughter of an Indian chief. The young man was of the Caucasian race, young and sprightly. He declared that he would not marry a squaw—he would live solitary and alone before he would marry the daughter of a race he had always learned to hate, if she was allied to the royal family of chiefs. Mayall heard his resolves with a twinkle in his eye, and here the matter rested, whilst every preparation was making for their now home.
Mayall was truly one of Nature's noble philosophers. When he had resolved to leave the Valley of the Otego Creek, where he had enjoyed so many scenes of strife and pleasure, his friends, both old and young, gathered at his cabin for a farewell visit. In the course of the evening the question was put to Mayall, who was the most advanced in years of any of the company, what season of life he had found most happy. In reply he inquired of the company if they had noticed the forest trees that once shaded the valley. They all replied they had. He then said, "When spring comes and the soft south wind blows up the valley, the buds on the trees open and they are sweet with blossoms, I say how beautiful is Spring, representing the morning of life.
The light winds are her laughter,
The murmuring brooks her song;
and when Summer comes and clothes the trees with foliage and shields me from the rays of the flaming noonday sun, cools the wind that sighs among the branches filled with singing birds that charm me to the grove, I say how glorious is Summer, the noonday of life.