A FROSTY MORNING 93 



and farther down the peninsula, the frost pursu- 

 ing him, he will still try again. There is one 

 thing to be depended upon (let us be thankful 

 to say it) a sanguine man's hope. 



So much for tillers of the soil. For the rest 

 of us, mere idlers and wayfarers, concerned only 

 with questions of sight-seeing and momentary 

 comfort, a day like the present needs no better- 

 ing. My own course, as I have said, lay through 

 the pine woods sunny, spacious, not in the 

 least like anything that a New Englander would 

 call a forest. At short intervals the road, white 

 and hard, ran past a small clearing, generally 

 with a house upon it. Here would be orange 

 trees, mango trees (just now in bloom), splendid 

 hibiscus shrubs, pineapples, perhaps, with other 

 novelties pleasant for Northern eyes to look 

 upon, or, quite as likely, a field of tomatoes (the 

 fruit nearly grown), or a sweet-potato patch. 



Near one of the houses the loud cries of some 

 strange bird troubled my curiosity. The opera- 

 glass showed me nothing, and I was none the 

 wiser till beside a second house I heard the same 

 voice again. This time I put aside my scruples 

 and made a set attempt to solve the mystery. A 

 woman before the door was inquisitive about 

 the stranger, but the stranger was still more in- 

 quisitive about the bird ; and by and by, on a 



