AT NATURAL BRIDGE 209 



— almost as wide, I thought, as the Tennes- 

 see at Chattanooga. Shortly before reach- 

 ing the Natural Bridge station the train 

 stopped for water, and on getting off the 

 steps of the car I heard a Maryland yel- 

 low-throat singing just below me at the foot 

 of the bank, and in a minute more a king- 

 fisher flew across the stream, — two addi- 

 tional names for my vacation catalogue. 

 Then, while I waited at the station for a 

 carriage from the hotel, — two miles and a 

 half away, — I added still another. In the 

 cloudy sky, between me and the sun, was a 

 bird which in that blinding light might have 

 passed for a buzzard, only that a swallow 

 was pursuing it. Seeing that sign, I raised 

 my glass and found the bird a fish-hawk. 

 Trifles these things were, perhaps, with 

 mountains and a river in sight ; but that 

 depends upon one's scale of values. To me 

 it is not so clear that a pile of earth is more 

 an object of wonder than a swallow that 

 soars above it ; and for better or worse, 

 mountains or no mountains, I kept an orni- 

 thological eye open. 



On the way to the Bridge (myself the 

 only passenger) the colored driver of the 



