VI 



ORCHARD SECRETS 



AFTER I gave up hunting for the bird's nest 

 I found it. Day after day I had searched 

 through my orchard for a kingbird's nest which I 

 knew from the action of the birds and their con- 

 stant presence there was in one of the apple or pear 

 trees. I looked them all over in vain, time after 

 time. Then I lay down in the grass under one of 

 the tall trees and kept my eyes on the birds. It was 

 a warm, ripe midsummer afternoon and the fra- 

 grance of the world of grass about me and the re- 

 pose of nature on all sides fairly drowsed my senses. 

 I took a languid interest in watching the two birds 

 and seeing them climb high in the air, now and then, 

 and overtake some bug or beetle that was venturing 

 forth for a pleasure flight in the upper regions of the 

 air, and then pitch down with their prey in their 

 beaks. 



I became so interested in these aerial excursions 

 of the two birds and the lumbering, slow-moving 

 insects that they were picking out of the air, that I 

 quite forgot the nest. After a while, casually turning 

 my head to one side to rest my eyes, I saw the nest 

 on a branch not twenty feet away from me. Nests 

 least concealed are often concealed the most. The 



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