212 A-BIRDING ON A BRONCO. 



My eucalyptus or blue gum grove was down 

 near the big sycamore, and opposite the bare 

 knoll where Romulus and the burrowing owls 

 had their nightly battles. On one side of it 

 was a rustling cornfield always pleasant to look 

 at. After the bare yellow stubble and all the 

 reds and browns of a California summer land- 

 scape, its rich dark green color and its stanch 

 strong stalks made it seem a very plain honest 

 sort of field, and its greenness was most grateful 

 to eyes unused to the bright colors and strong 

 lights of California. 



Opposite the little grove, in a small house 

 perched on a hill, an old sea-captain lived alone. 

 As I rode by one day, he sat with his feet hang- 

 ing over the edge of the high piazza, looking 

 off ; as if on the prow of his vessel, gazing out 

 to sea. When I stopped to ask if he had seen 

 anything noteworthy happen at the grove, he 

 complained that it shut off his view and kept 

 away the breeze from the ocean ! I was too 

 much taken by surprise to apologize for my 

 trees, but felt reproached ; unwittingly I had 

 destroyed the old captain's choicest pleasure. 

 He had spoken in an impersonal way that I 

 quite understood, he had been taken unawares, 

 but the next time I rode past, as if to make 

 up for any apparent rudeness, he came hurrying 

 down the walk to tell me of a crow's nest he 

 had seen in the grove. To mark it he had 



