10 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



them. I don t see how you manage to get 

 scratched up so. I never do.&quot; 



&quot;Jonathan, you are as tactless as the 

 thrush.&quot; 



&quot;Don t kill me yet, though. Wait till I 

 cut this last fellow. There! Now you re 

 free. By George! But you re a wreck!&quot; 



That was the last time I ever tried to 

 &quot;work through brush,&quot; as Jonathan calls it. 

 If I can catch trout by any method compati 

 ble with sanity, I am ready to do it, but as 

 for allowing myself to be drawn into a situa 

 tion wherein the note of the wood thrush stirs 

 thoughts of murder in my breast at that 

 point, I opine, sport ceases. 



So on that day of our runaway I kept to 

 open waters and preserved a placid mind. 

 The air was full of bird notes in the big 

 open woods the clear &quot;whick-ya, whick-ya, 

 whick-ya&quot; of the courting yellowhammers, 

 in the meadows bluebirds with their shy, 

 vanishing call that is over almost before you 

 can begin to listen, meadowlarks poignantly 

 sweet, song sparrows with a lift and a lilt and 

 a carol, and in the swamps the red-wings 

 trilling jubilant. 



