At Home on This Earth Two Centuries of U.S. Women's Nature Writing Edited by Lorraine Anderson and Thomas S. Edwards University Press of New England Hanover and London Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction: The Great Chorus of Woman and Nature i Lorraine Anderson i Caroline Kirkland 13 Chapters 5 and 16 from Forest Life 13 Margaret Fuller 20 The Prairies of Illinois 20 Harriet Beecher Stowe 28 Picknicking up Julington 28 Susan Fenimore Cooper 34 Otsego Leaves I: Birds Then and Now 34 Elizabeth C.Wright 41 Into the Woods 41 Olive Thorne Miller 54 Camping in Colorado 54 In the Cottonwoods 58 Celia Laighton Thaxter 65 Selections from An Island Garden 65 Charlotte Forten Grimke 72 Journal Excerpts, 1854-1863 72 Sarah Orne Jewett 81 A Winter Drive 81 Edith M.Thomas 91 Nature and the Native 91 Grass: A Rumination - 94 The Solitary Bee 98 vii viii • Contents Anna Botsford Comstock 101 Trees at Leisure 101 A Little Nomad 107 Mabel Osgood Wright no Feathered Philosophers no Nature's Calm 117 Gene Stratton Porter 123 The Last Passenger Pigeon 123 Florence Merriam Bailey 133 Selections from Birds Through an Opera Glass 133 Mary Hunter Austin 144 The Land of Little Rain 145 The Walking Woman 149 Mabel Dodge Luhan 156 Chapter 31 from Edge of Taos Desert 156 Florence Page Jaques 169 Birds Across the Sky 169 Marjory Stoneman Douglas 179 The Grass 179 I Fabiola Cabeza de Baca 183 I The Night It Rained 183 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 188 The Magnolia Tree 188 Sally Carrighar 196 The Weasel 196 The Wilderness Code 199 Meridel Le Sueur 204 The Ancient People and the Newly Come 204 Rachel Carson 214 The Shape of Ancient Seas 215 Contents • ix Josephine Johnson 223 June 223 Virginia Eifert 229 Winter River 229 Maxine Kumin 237 Getting into the Register 237 Ann Zwinger 241 The Lake Rock 242 Ursula K. Le Guin 245 She Unnames Them 245 Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston 248 Rock Garden 248 Sue Hubbell 255 Selections from A Country Year 255 Marilou Awiakta 260 How the Corn-Mother Became a Teacher of Wisdom 261 Selu Sings for Survival 265 Anne LaBastille 270 Sauntering Around Lilypad Lake 270 Susan Griffin 277 Selections from Woman and Nature 278 Linda Hasselstrom 284 Rock Lover 284 Alice Walker 291 My Heart Has Reopened to You 292 Annie Dillard 295 Seeing 295 Gretel Ehrlich 303 Landscape 303 x • Contents ITerri de la Pena 309 Pajaritos 309 Linda Hogan 316 Dwellings 316 Ellen Meloy 322 Phantom Limb 322 Leslie Marmon Silko 333 Fifth World: The Return of Ma ah shra true ee, the Giant Serpent 334 I Denise Chavez 341 ^Crossing Bitter Creek: Meditations on the Colorado River 341 Brenda Peterson 347 Killing Our Elders 347 Diana Kappel-Smith 352 In the Green Room 352 bell hooks 360 Touching the Earth 360 Sharman Apt Russell 365 Gila Wilderness 365 Louise Erdrich 375 Big Grass 375 Evelyn C. White 380 Dancing: A Grand Canyon Saga 380 Terry Tempest Williams 383 Winter Solstice at the Moab Slough 383 Pam Houston 386 A Buzzard Under Blue Sky 386 Julia Butterfly Hill 391 Climbing to the Top 391 Bibliography and Further Reading 395 Index of Authors and Titles 403.