St Nicholas [serial] . He knew the life, and he foundthat the stories depicted it truly, for the captainwas also familiar with the Rockies and theprairies. The writers who have come after Cap- i9io.] BOOKS AND READING 553 tain Reid are not so good as he was. The storieshe wrote were simpler and had in them a distinctquality of the life out there, which he knew andunderstood, and the boys, with the old trappersand Indians who are associated with them, arevery natural and likable. Reid was not, like Cooper, writing of a pastor dying condition, but of a living present, fullof the fun and exciteme
St Nicholas [serial] . He knew the life, and he foundthat the stories depicted it truly, for the captainwas also familiar with the Rockies and theprairies. The writers who have come after Cap- i9io.] BOOKS AND READING 553 tain Reid are not so good as he was. The storieshe wrote were simpler and had in them a distinctquality of the life out there, which he knew andunderstood, and the boys, with the old trappersand Indians who are associated with them, arevery natural and likable. Reid was not, like Cooper, writing of a pastor dying condition, but of a living present, fullof the fun and excitement of the new and the with one of the Boy Hunters, or paddled a silentcanoe up a forest stream with the careful eyesof Leather-Stocking searching the dangerousdark for us, then we possess for all time some-thing of the wilderness, a green branch as itwere, that cannot wither. Spring is at hand, and with the spring the old,roving, Gipsy strain wakes up and draws us alongby its wild music, just as the Pied Piper is sup-. COW-BOY FUN. DRAWN BY FREDERIC REMINGTON. young. It is a pity not to read these books whileyou are young yourself. Having so read them,the crackle of a camp-fire, the gallop of horses!feet across the fields, the mere glimpse of anIndian or a cow-boy, will be enough to take youright back into that world, which will always beyours because of the pages you read in winterevenings, or up in the boughs of an apple-treein May, or rocking in a rowboat of summerafternoons. The life in each of us that has beenhanded down from who knows what wild ances-tors, finds delight in these and kindred books,and we certainly dont want to miss its joy andbeauty. If we have ever ridden hot on a trail posed to have bewitched all the little childreninto following him when he played on his long for the boundless West, but we have tobe content with such fields and woods as are athand. But fortunately there is nothing to stopour imagination from taking part in all the greatadventur
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidstnicholasserial371dodg
