240 EYE SPY 
Having thus decided, I closed my note -book, 
but the experience of the next few minutes quite 
reversed my plans, and led to the completion of 
an entirely different article, or the pictures for it 
at least, on the same afternoon, without awaiting 
the morrow. 
I had barely closed the note-book when, chanc- 
ing to glance out of my studio window, I observed 
a well-known neighbor, a thrifty, retired granger 
and carpenter, approaching across lots. His 
house stood out against the sky at the crest of 
the slope, about a furlong distant, above my 
studio, and he had perhaps reached half-way to 
my window before I had observed him. Some- 
thing in his walk, his somewhat accelerated pace 
and evident preoccupied mood, as well as a pecul- 
iar position of his extended right hand, foretold 
that some unusual errand had turned his steps 
hitherward. With considerable curiosity I en- 
deavored to detect at a distance the specimen 
which he was bringing, well knowing from expe- 
rience that I should soon recognize an old friend, 
which for sixty years had somehow managed to 
escape the notice of its new discoverer. 
Half across the meadow I now observed that he 
held a leaf in his outstretched hand, and now I 
clearly noted that it was a compound leaf, and in 
another second I knew it all. For was it not a 
leaf of the Virginia -creeper or woodbine? and 
