ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN’S. 123 
ress, — under a new broom, —to secure, if 
possible, a few bits of recognition (“ plums ” 
is the technical term, I believe) for men so 
deserving. The first baseman certainly, 
who had oftenest to wade into the scrub, 
should have received a consulate, at the very 
least. Yet they were a merry crew, those 
national gamesters. Their patriotism was of 
the noblest type,—the unconscious. They 
had no thought of being heroes, nor dreamed 
of bounties or pensions. They quarreled 
with the umpire, of course, but not with 
Fate; and I hope I profited by their ex- 
ample. My errand in Sanford was to see 
something of the river in its narrower and 
better part ; and having done that, I did not 
regret what otherwise might have seemed a 
profitless week. 
First, however, I walked about the city. 
Here, as already at St. Augustine, and after- 
ward at Tallahassee, I found the mocking- 
birds in free song. They are birds of the 
town. And the same is true of the logger- 
head shrikes, a pair of which had built a 
nest in a small water-oak at the edge of the 
sidewalk, on a street corner, just beyond the 
reach of passers-by. In the roadside trees 
