FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD. 91 



"Why didn't you take it?" asked his 

 companion in a tone of wonder. 



"Well, I 'm not that kind of a fellow, to 

 be bought for fifty cents." 



As we approached the base of the moun- 

 tain, a white-throated sparrow was piping 

 by the roadside. 



"I love to hear that bird sing," said the 

 driver. 



It was now my turn to be surprised. Our 

 man of principle was also a man of senti- 

 ment. 



"What do you call him?" I inquired, as 

 soon as I could recover myself. 



"Whistling Jack," he answered; a new 

 name to me, and a good one ; it would take 

 a nicer ear than mine to discriminate with 

 certainty between a white-throat's voice and 

 a school-boy's whistle. 



The morning had promised well, but be- 

 fore we emerged from the forest as we neared 

 the summit we drove into a cloud, and, 

 shortly afterward, into a pouring rain. In 

 the office of the hotel I found a company of 

 eight persons, four men and four women, 

 drying themselves about the stove. They 

 had left a village twenty miles away at two 



