SOME HERMITS OF THE MARSH 



RETURNING home from a long April 

 walk, the other day, I heard, as I was plod 

 ding across a willow-bordered causeway 

 that crossed a marsh, a sound like one 

 pumping water from a well with an old- 

 fashioned, wheezy, wooden pump. There 

 was no house in sight anywhere, and the 

 marsh was wide and deserted, yet I instinct 

 ively looked in the direction of the sound, 

 half expecting to see some bare-armed coun 

 try girl pumping a pitcherful of water for 

 the supper-table, or a thirsty farm laborer, 

 with one hand over the nozzle of the pump- 

 spout, bending down to drink the cool 

 stream that spurted from his ringers. But 

 in a moment I knew that the deceptive 

 sound I had heard was made by the bittern, 

 or "stake-driver," a large, shy, ungainly 

 bird of the wader family, that tenants re 

 mote marshes, and seldom shows itself in 

 the open or upon the wing, unless startled 

 from its muddy retreat by the gunner or the 

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