Though I'm separated from Mrs. Trowbridge's forest world by over 200 years, sometimes I almost feel like I know her. She seems like a long lost aunt that I knew when I was a child. When a tiny shrew darts through the tall grass near my berry patch, she flashes though my mind for a brief moment. Is this little shrew that lives in my berry bush one of Mrs. T's descendants?
Then I snap back into reality. I'm content to know her through the record she left for us in her tiny illustrated diary. What if I hadn't broken off the North Fork Quinault River trail and hiked upstream on Wild Rose Creek eight years ago? I would have never found that little gold box on that mossy ledge beside the stream that contained her precious diary. What if...
