There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many

years or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,

And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover,

\and the song of the phoebe-bird,

And the Third-month lambs and the sow’s pink-faint litter,

and the mare’s foal and the cow’s calf, . . .

—WALT WHITMAN

I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.

—A FOURTH-GRADER IN SAN DlEGO

Epigraph,  Last Child In The Woods — Richard Louv