A WEEK ON WALBEN'S BIDGE. 157 



of the foliage, I liad the bird under my 

 opera-glass, — a black-throated blue war- 

 bler ! With my eye still upon him, he sang 

 again and again, and the song bore no faint- 

 est resemblance to the kree, Xree, kree, which 

 all New England bird-lovers know as the 

 work of Dendi'oica cmrulescens. In what 

 private school he had been educated I have, 

 no idea; but I believe that every such 

 extreme eccentricity goes back to some- 

 thing out of the common in the bird's early 

 training. 



I felt in no haste. Life is easy in the 

 Tennessee mountains. A pile of lumber, 

 newly unloaded near the road, — in the 

 woods, of course, — offered a timely seat, 

 and I took it. Some Chattanooga gentle- 

 man was planning a summer cottage for 

 himself, I gathered. May he enjoy it for 

 twenty years as much as I did for twenty 

 minutes. Not far beyond, near a fork in the 

 road, a man of twenty-five or thirty, a youth 

 of sixteen or seventeen, and a small boy were 

 playing marbles in a cabin yard. I inter- 

 rupted the sport long enough to inquire 

 which road I had better take. I was going 

 nowhere in particular, I explained, and 



