IN A GREEN COUNTRY 155 



Of course she had to attend school on most days but 

 on Saturdays she was free and she could generally get 

 permission to absent herself from school on another 

 day. Failing her he had to take a larger girl, out of 

 school, who was not half so intelligent as the other and 

 not so well liked by the cottage women. 



I noticed that this man, like many other blind 

 persons I have met, though big and strong and in the 

 prime of life, was a very quiet still man who spoke 

 in a low voice and was subdued and gentle in manner. 

 I think it is the habit of always listening that makes 

 them so quiet, and I wondered what his sensations 

 were when a motor cyclist passed us, going by like a 

 whirlwind, a horrible object, shaking the earth, and 

 making it hateful until he was a mile away with a 

 torrent of noise. 



In my quieter way on my wheel I rambled on from 

 county to county viewing many towns and villages, 

 conversing with persons of all ages and conditions ; yet 

 all this left but slight and quickly-fading impressions, 

 for in my Minings about a green land when it was 

 greenest I had an object ever present in my mind — 

 the desire to see and hear certain rare singing birds, 

 found chiefly in the south, whose rarity is in most cases 

 due to the collectors for the cabinet, bird-catchers, 

 and other Philistines, who occupy themselves in the 

 destruction of all loveliest forms of life. Thus, the 

 clear whistle of a golden oriole, when I listened to it 

 in a strictly-guarded wood, where it breeds annually 

 and where I was permitted to spend a day, was more to 



