CHAPTER IX 



THE BUZZARD OF THE BEAR SWAMP 



NO, I do not believe that any one of you evei >, 

 went into a swamp to find a turkey buzzard's v,. 

 nest. Still, if you had been born on the >. 

 edge of a great swamp, as I was, and if the great- * 

 winged buzzards had been soaring, soaring up in 5' 

 I your sky, as all through my boyhood they were v 

 y ; soaring up in mine, then why should you not have 

 -r gone some time into the swamp to see where they 

 ^ make their nests these strange cloud-winged crea- 

 t tures ? 



\ Boys are boys, and girls are girls, the world over; 

 5* and I am pretty sure that little Jack Homer and 

 ^ myself were not the only two boys in all the world 

 ^ to do great and wonderful deeds. Any boy with a 

 lUove for birds and a longing for the deep woods, 

 j* living close to the edge of the Bear Swamp, would 

 have searched out that buzzard's nest. 



Although I was born within the shadows of the 

 Bear Swamp, close enough to smell the magnolias 

 along its margin, and lived my first ten years only a 

 little farther off, yet it was not until after twice 

 years of absence that I stood again within sight 



