WILD PASTURES 



toward you in their diaphanous drap- 

 ery, but it is the berry bushes shoulder- 

 ing up to greet you in hearty bourgeois 

 welcome that make you feel at home. 



I listened to the thrush, but soon I 

 found that I had only one ear to do it 

 with, for on the other side of me a bird 

 was rapidly approaching with greater 

 and equally persistent clamor. It was 

 a whip-poor-will, seemingly roused to 

 rivalry by the challenge of the thrush. 

 So far as I know the thrush paid no 

 attention to him but simply kept up his 

 song in the birch near by, but the whip- 

 poor-will came up little by little till he 

 seemed almost over my head, and I 

 could hear plainly the hoarse intake of 

 breath between each call. Very brief 

 gasps these intakes were, for the whip- 

 poor-wills fairly tumbled over one an- 

 other without cessation. 

 30 



