Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/248

230 I would stay in till afternoon, I thought; books, also, are a world, as Wordsworth said; but pretty soon the sun shone out; things looked too inviting. "I will go over as far as Longfellow's Pond," said I. "Perhaps there will be something in that quarter." That was a happy thought. I was hardly in the old cattle pasture, feeling it good to have the grass under my feet once more, all bleached and sodden though it was, when I stopped. Wasn't that a bluebird's note? No, it was probably nothing but my imagination. But the sound reached me again; faint, fugacious, just grazing the ear. I put up my hands to my ears' help, and stood still. Yes, I certainly heard it; and this time I got its direction. A glance that way and I saw the bird, pretty far off, at the tip of an elm sapling standing by itself down in a sheltered hollow. I leveled my field-glass upon him (it was well I had brought it), made sure of his color, a piece of pure loveliness, and hastened to get nearer. Before I could turn the corner of the intervening wire fence, however, he took flight, and another with him. I followed hastily, and was approach-