TALKING ACROSS THE TREE-TOPS 53 



tremulous tones of the veery, sounding to me 

 like " Wake up ! Judy ! " the first two notes 

 with falling, the last two with rising inflection. 

 As evening of that first day drew on, the call 

 to Judy was accompanied by other sounds ut- 

 tered in the same voice, a loud ringing song 

 or recitative composed of similar ejaculations, 

 with varied modulations that gave it greater 

 resemblance to conversation than to music. 

 Indeed, while I sat and listened through the 

 long twilight to two or three birds calling 

 and answering one another from distant tree- 

 tops, I could not rid myself of the fancy that 

 they were exchanging opinions across their 

 green world. 



The country was beautiful, bobolinks sang 

 enchantingly almost under my window, warb- 

 lers and hermit-thrushes made musical the 

 woods behind the house, but the singer I 

 could not name was the most bewitching of 

 all. If I could not trace him, I could at 

 least fly from him, and so I did. I packed 

 my belongings and took a bee-line across the 

 state to the Island where my story begins. 

 I settled myself in the nook already de- 

 scribed and prepared to forget, or try to for- 



