There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of
grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green
fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered
across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields,
half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.
Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler's
eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where
countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising
above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird
life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall, people traveled from
great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, fish flowed clear and cold
out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many
years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells and built their barns.
What tone does the author establish in this excerpt?