A RAMBLER'S LEASE

BY

BRADFORD TORREY

I have known many laboring men that have got good estates in this valley. — BUNYAN

Sunbeams, shadows, butterflies, and birds. — WORDSWORTH

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1896

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

PREFATORY NOTE.

THE writer of this little book has found so much pleasure in other men's woods and fields that he has come to look upon himself as in some sort the owner of them. Their lawful possessors will not begrudge him this feeling, he believes, nor take it amiss if he assumes, even in this public way, to hold a rambler's lease of their property. Should it please them to do so, they may accept the papers herein contained as a kind of return, the best he knows how to offer, for the many favors, alike unproffered and unasked, which he has received at their hands. His private opinion is that the world belongs to those who enjoy it; and taking this view of the matter, he cannot help thinking that some of his more prosperous neighbors would do well, in legal phrase, to perfect their titles. He would gladly be of service to them in this regard.