THE GRAVEL PIT 



It is so quiet here that the birds are perfectly at home. The 

 scarlet tanager sweeps down to drink under the water-tap left 

 purposely aleak, the oriole calls from her swinging nest and the 

 white-throated sparrows flutter among the sumac bushes. In Sep- 

 tember the warblers arrive in flocks and hie them to the curled-up 

 leaves of the linden, and the goldfinches are busy with the aster 

 seeds. The nuthatch runs up and down the fallen tree trunk and 

 turns his head with many a pert inquiry as to my intentions; but I 

 sit perfectly still, restraining my excitement when the redstarts 

 flutter down close to me, or even when a woodchuck slowly emerges 

 from behind a boulder not far away. Scattered about the rocky hol- 

 low all kinds of wild sunflowers and black-eyed Susans are planted, 

 and here in early Spring the poet's narcissus nods to the violets 

 both yellow and blue. The lobelia and the golden-rod, the thimble 

 weed and the catnip, cinquefoil and agrimony, the wild pepper- 

 mint and the figwort, each has its bit of earth; and at the north a 

 small buckthorn grove leads to the narrow path straight up the 

 hillside, into the deep, wild woods. 



