In the October Moon, by Dallas Lore Sharp

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Dallas Lore Sharp (1870-1929) was an American nature writer and a professor of English at Boston University.  His 1908 book The Lay of the Land is considered a landmark in the American conservation movement.  His books were very popular, and were prescribed reading in some elementary schools.  His writing is beautiful.  It expresses all the wonder of moonlit nights and chilly mornings, and the thrill of new discoveries.  When he writes about animals, he sympathizes with them without anthropomorphising them.  They are fellow travelers due respect.

The essay "In the October Moon" is included in his book Wild Life Near Home, published in 1901.  John Burroughs said of the book "of all the nature books of recent years, I look upon Mr. Sharp's as the best." Excerpts from this book were collected in a small volume called A Watcher in the Woods, published in 1910 and intended for schoolchildren.  My copy of the latter book has, stamped in light blue ink on its title page, the words "Prescribed for eighth grade reading in the 1910 syllabus of the New York State Dept. of Education".  

Several people have owned the book before me.  Written on its pages is the name of someone who called himself "Junior" in 1913, then seems to have decided to call himself "Jimmy" in 1914.  These are written in indigo ink, in much better handwriting than mine, but a little awkwardly by the high standards of the time.  There's also a (later?) name, written lightly in pencil, of a lady named Elizabeth.  These are the things that change a book from a document into an artifact.