ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN'S. 123 



ress, under a new broom, to secure, if 

 possible, a few bits of recognition (" plums " 

 is the technical term, I believe) for men so 

 deserving. The first baseman certainly, 

 who had oftenest to wade into the scrub, 

 should have received a consulate, at the very 

 least. Yet they were a merry crew, those 

 national gamesters. Their patriotism was of 

 the noblest type, the unconscious. They 

 had no thought of being heroes, nor dreamed 

 of bounties or pensions. They quarreled 

 with the umpire, of course, but not with 

 Fate ; and I hope I profited by their ex- 

 ample. My errand in Sanford was to see 

 something of the river in its narrower and 

 better part ; and having done that, I did not 

 regret what otherwise might have seemed a 

 profitless week. 



First, however, I walked about the city. 

 Here, as already at St. Augustine, and after- 

 ward at Tallahassee, I found the mocking- 

 birds in free song. They are birds of the 

 town. And the same is true of the logger- 

 head shrikes, a pair of which had built a 

 nest in a small water-oak at the edge of the 

 sidewalk, on a street corner, just beyond the 

 reach of passers-by. In the roadside trees 



