AUTUMN 71 



and looked up the roadside and down the 

 roadside and over the wall, I went on my 

 way, stopping once for a feast of blackber- 

 ries, as many and as good as a man could 

 ask for, long, slender, sweet, and dead ripe ; 

 and at the top of the road I cut across a 

 hayfield to the lane before mentioned, that 

 should take me back to the Sugar Hill high- 

 way. Now the prospects were in front of 

 me, there was no more steepness of grade, I 

 had seen Tom Lincoln's finch, 1 and the day 

 was brighter than ever. Every sparrow that 

 stirred I must put my glass on ; but not one 

 was of the right complexion. 



Then, in a sugar grove not far from the 

 Franconia Inn, I found myself all at once 

 in the midst of one of those traveling flocks 

 that make so delightful a break in a bird- 

 lover's day. I was in the midst of it, I say ; 

 but the real fact was that the birds were 

 passing through the grove between me and 

 the sky. For the time being the branches 

 were astir with wings. Such minutes are 

 exciting. " Now or never," a man says to 



1 " I named it Tom's Finch," says Audubon, " in honor 

 of our friend Lincoln, who was a great favorite among us." 



