To get what you have been wishing for is pleasant; but to get what
you have not been sure of, makes the pleasure tingle.  A new door of
happiness is opened when you go out to hunt for something and
discover it with your own eyes.  But there is an experience even
better than that.  When you have stupidly forgotten (or despondently
forgone) to look about you for the unclaimed treasures and unearned
blessings which are scattered along the by-ways of life, then,
sometimes by a special mercy, a small sample of them is quietly laid
before you so that you cannot help seeing it, and it brings you back
to a sense of the joyful possibilities of living.

How full of enjoyment is the search after wild things,--wild birds,
wild flowers, wild honey, wild berries!  There was a country club on
Storm King Mountain, above the Hudson River, where they used to
celebrate a festival of flowers every spring.  Men and women who had
conservatories of their own, full of rare plants and costly orchids,
came together to admire the gathered blossoms of the woodlands and
meadows.  But the people who had the best of the entertainment were
the boys and girls who wandered through the thickets and down the
brooks, pushed their way into the tangled copses and crept
venturesomely across the swamps, to look for the flowers.  Some of
the seekers may have had a few gray hairs; but for that day at least
they were all boys and girls.  Nature was as young as ever, and they
were all her children.  Hand touched hand without a glove.  The
hidden blossoms of friendship unfolded.  Laughter and merry shouts
and snatches of half-forgotten song rose to the lips.  Gay adventure
sparkled in the air.  School was out and nobody listened for the
bell.  It was just a day to live, and be natural, and take no
thought for the morrow.