Henry Van Dyke

Little Rivers is a classic collection of nature stories by Henry van Dyke containing the following titles: Prelude -- Little rivers -- A leaf of spearmint -- Ampersand -- A handful of heather -- The ristigouche from a horse-yacht -- Alpenrosen and goat's milk -- Au large -- Trout-fishing in the Traun -- At the sign of the balsam bough -- A song after sundown -- The wood-notes of the veery. A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own, and is as full of good fellowship as a sugar-maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects, grave and gay. Under favourable circumstances it will even make a shift to sing, not in a fashion that can be reduced to notes and set down in black and white on a sheet of paper, but in a vague, refreshing manner, and to a wandering air that goes "Over the hills and far away."