80 IN SEARCH OF THE BLUE J AY. 



north, with a guide — a visiting Massachusetts 

 ornithologist — to show me a partridge nest with 

 the bird sitting. We followed the ups and 

 downs of the road for a mile, passing a meadow 

 full of bobolinks, 



" Bubbling rapturously, madly," 



climbed by a grass-grown wood road a moun- 

 tain-side pasture, and reached the forest. Under 

 a dead spruce sat my lady, in a snug bed among 

 the fallen leaves. She was wet; her lovely 

 mottled plumage was disarranged and draggled, 

 but her head was drawn down into her feathers 

 in patient endurance, the mother love triumphant 

 over everything, even fear. We stood within 

 six feet of the shy creature; we discussed her 

 courage in the face of the human monsters we 

 felt ourselves to be. Not a feather fluttered, 

 not an eyelid quivered; truly it was the perfect 

 love that casteth out fear. 



My guide went on up to the top of Grey lock; 

 I turned back to pursue my search. 



Eastward was my next trip, down toward the 

 brook that made a valley between Greylock and 

 Ragged Mountain. My path was under the 

 edge of the woods that fringed a mountain 

 stream. Not the smallest of the debt we owe 

 the bonny brook is that it wears a deep gully, 

 whose precipitous sides are clothed with a thick 



