252 WINTER PICTURES. 



keys (for a brood of the last were known to lurk 

 about the woods back there). It was a delightful 

 afternoon's tramp through oak woods, pine barrens, 

 and half-wild fields. We flushed several quail that 

 the dog should have pointed, and put a rabbit to rout 

 by a well-directed broadside, but brought no game to 

 camp. We kicked about an old bushy clearing, where 

 my friends had shot a wild turkey Thanksgiving Day, 

 but the turkey could not be started again. One shoot- 

 ing had sufficed for it. We crossed or penetrated 

 extensive pine woods that had once (perhaps in 

 Washington's time) been cultivated fields ; the mark 

 of the plow was still clearly visible. The land had 

 been thrown into ridges, after the manner of English 

 fields, eight or ten feet wide, with a deep dead furrow 

 between them for purposes of drainage. The pines 

 were scrubby, what are known as the loblolly pines, 

 and from ten to twelve inches through at the butt. 

 In a low bottom among some red cedars, I saw rob- 

 ins and several hermit thrushes, besides the yellow- 

 rumped warbler. 



That night, as the sun went down on the one hand, 

 the full moon rose up on the other, like the opposite 

 side of an enormous scale. The river, too, was pres- 

 ently brimming with the flood tide. It was so still 

 one could have carried a lighted candle from shore 

 to shore. In a little skiff, we floated and paddled up 

 under the shadow of Mount Vernon and into the 

 mouth of a large creek that flanks it on the left. In 

 the profound hush of things, every sound on either 



