234 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



ing the bluebirds and the barn swallows, 

 that are here at home. A Boston lady 

 holds the legal title to the property (be it 

 said in her honor that she bought it to save 

 the pine wood from destruction), but the 

 birds are its actual owners. Six bluebirds 

 sit in a row on the wire, while the swallows 

 go twittering over the field. Once I fancy 

 that I hear the sharp call of a horned lark ; 

 but the note is not repeated, and though I 

 beat the grass over I discover nothing. 1 



Beyond this level clearing the road winds 

 to the left and begins its climb to the height 

 of land, whence it pitches down into Bethle- 

 hem village. Every stage of the course is 

 familiar. Here a pileated woodpecker once 

 came out of the woods and disported himself 

 about the trunk of an apple tree for my de- 

 lectation mine and a friend's who walked 

 with me ; here a hare sat quiet till I was 

 close upon him, and then scampered across 



1 Four days afterward (August 9) I found larks of 

 the present season in the Landaff Valley, where I had 

 watched their parents with so much pleasure in May, as 

 I have described in a previous chapter. These August 

 birds were feeding upon oats in the road, like so many 

 English sparrows. 



