124 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



run faster in his shriveled old veins to have such 

 gallant comrades. 



Purple grackles creaked and clattered in the trees, 

 and the bushes were full of song-sparrow notes, as 

 the Band hurried away from the house-line toward 

 the Land of the Wild-Folk, where Romance still 

 dwells and adventures lurk behind every bush. 

 A tottering stone chimney marked its boundaries. 

 There old Roberts Road began. On and beyond 

 Roberts Road anything might happen. 



Each one of the Band, in addition to the lethal 

 weapons already set forth, carried a note-book and 

 a pencil with which to keep a list of all birds seen 

 and heard, with notes on the same. Even Corporal 

 Alice-Palace, who was only six, carried a blank- 

 book about the size of a geography. To date it 

 contained this single entry: "Robbins eat wormes. 

 I saw him do it." 



The Quartermaster-General, despite the difficulty 

 of the evening before, had seen to it that the Band 

 carried with them the very finest lunch that any 

 treasure-hunters ever had since Pizarro dined with 

 the Inca of Peru. 



As they moved deep and deeper into Wild-Folk 

 Land the air was full of bird-songs. The Captain 

 made them stop and listen to the singing sparrows. 

 First there was the song sparrow, who begins with 

 three notes and wheezes a little as he sings. It took 

 them longer to learn the quieter song of the vesper 

 sparrow, with the flash of white in his tail-feathers. 

 His song always starts with two dreamy, contralto 



