[PW] Environmental story/quotation stumper

[Nancy Lucchese]

And a good day to you, fellow librarians!

I just recieved this question via email:

*I once read in the writings of one of the great conservationists perhaps
John Muir or some one of his
stature a simple little story that stuck with me. One day, he (?  Muir ?)
was walking in a grove of maple trees and found a rusted  syrup pail that
had collected stagnate water. Into it many creatures including a mouse had
crawled and died. It was black and smelly and filled with death and
corruption. The man kicked the
pail over and left. A couple days latter he returned and found all the
corrupted mater when it was out in the open with the flow of air and water
and other animals had been brought back into the  cycle of nature and
purified. He then thought that the same  principle applied to people. When
in the flow of nature people were alive, when stagnating in a small world
with no input they  were dead. I have searched for years, even on the
internet, to find this story again, but can t. Can you help. *
**
I wrote back to the emailer and told him that it was probably not Muir, who
spent most of his his life in the Western US, where there is no maple syrup
production and that it was likely someone in New England or Vermont. (For
some strange reason, Robert Frost came to my mind.)  Then I suggested
looking a few reference books- some quotation compilations plus an reference
work with environmentalist biographies.

Any other ideas? Or by sheer chance, does this story sound familiar to
anyone?
Thanks in advance!

Nancy