188 A COTTON PLANTATION. 
far from hopeless. A bright thought came 
to me. I ran from the path with a great 
show of eager absorption, leveled my glass 
upon the pine-tree, and stood fixed. Per- 
haps Mr. would take the hint. Alas! 
he had too much courtesy to pass his own 
guest without speaking. “Still after the 
birds?” he said, as he checked his horse. I 
responded, as I hope, without any symptom 
of annoyance. ‘Then, of course, he wished to 
know what I was looking at, and I told him 
that a blue grosbeak had just flown into that 
pine-tree, and that I was most distressingly 
anxious to see more of him. He looked at 
the pine-tree. ‘I can’t see him,” he said. 
No more could I. “It wasn’t a blue jay, 
was it?” he asked. And then we talked of 
one thing and another, I have no idea what, 
till he rode away to another part of the plan- 
tation where a gang of women were at work. 
By this time the grosbeak had disappeared 
utterly. Possibly he had gone to a bit of 
wood on the opposite side of the cane-swamp. 
I sealed a barbed-wire fence and made in 
that direction, but to no purpose. The gros- 
beak was gone for good. Probably I should 
never see another. Could the planter have 
