MY NEIGHBORS FIELD 



and toss on dusky barred wings above the 

 field of summer twilights. Never one of 

 these nighthawks will you see after linnet 

 time, though the hurtle of their wings 

 makes a pleasant sound across the dusk in 

 their season. 



For two summers a great red-tailed 

 hawk has visited the field every afternoon 

 between three and four o'clock, swooping 

 and soaring with the airs of a gentleman 

 adventurer. What he finds there is chiefly 

 conjectured, so secretive are the little peo- 

 ple of Naboth's field. Only when leaves 

 fall and the light is low and slant, one sees 

 the long clean flanks of the jackrabbits, 

 leaping like small deer, and of late after- 

 noons little cotton-tails scamper in the 

 runways. But the most one sees of the 

 burrowers, gophers, and mice is the fresh 

 earthwork of their newly opened doors, or 

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