He found it was `` so , '' at the cost of a very sore tongue for several days . But Jem did not grudge suffering in the interests of science . By constant experiment and observation he learned a great deal and his brothers and sisters thought his extensive knowledge of their little world quite wonderful . Jem always knew where the first and ripest berries grew , where the first pale violets shyly wakened from their winter 's sleep , and how many blue eggs were in a given robin 's nest in the maple grove . He could tell fortunes from daisy petals and suck honey from red clovers , and grub up all sorts of edible roots on the banks of the pond , while Susan went in daily fear that they would all be poisoned . He knew where the finest spruce-gum was to be found , in pale amber knots on the lichened bark , he knew where the nuts grew thickest in the beechwoods around the Harbour Head , and where the best trouting places up the brooks were . He could mimic the call of any wild bird or beast in Four Winds and he knew the haunt of every wild flower from spring to autumn . Walter Blythe was sitting under the White Lady , with a volume of poems lying beside him , but he was not reading . He was gazing now at the emerald-misted willows by the pond , and now at a flock of clouds , like little silver sheep , herded by the wind , that were drifting over Rainbow Valley , with rapture in his wide splendid eyes . Walter 's eyes were very wonderful . All the joy and sorrow and laughter and loyalty and aspiration of many generations lying under the sod looked out of their dark gray depths . Walter was a `` hop out of kin , '' as far as looks went . He did not resemble any known relative . He was quite the handsomest of the Ingleside children , with straight black hair and finely modelled features . But he had all his mother 's vivid imagination and passionate love of beauty . Frost of winter , invitation of spring , dream of summer and glamour of autumn , all meant much to Walter . In school , where Jem was a chieftain , Walter was not thought highly of . He was supposed to be `` girly '' and milk-soppish , because he never fought and seldom joined in the school sports , preferring to herd by himself in out of the way corners and read books -- especially `` po ` try books . '' Walter loved the poets and pored over their pages from the time he could first read . Their music was woven into his growing soul -- the music of the immortals .
Walter cherished the ambition XXXXX be a poet himself some day .
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