AUTUMN 19 



tion into the life of things about me. It 

 will not last, and I know it wiU not ; but it 

 is like heaven, for the time it is on me, — a 

 foretaste, perhaps, of the true Nirvana. 



Yet to-day — so self -contradictory a crea- 

 ture is man — there were some things I 

 missed. The dreamer was stiU a hobbyist, 

 and the hobbyist had been in the Lonesome 

 Lake woods before ; and he wondered what 

 had become of the crossbills. The common 

 red ones were always here, I should have 

 said, and on more than one visit I had found 

 the rarer and loveher white-winged species. 

 Now, in all the forest chorus, not a cross- 

 bill's note was audible. 



One day, bright like this, I was sitting at 

 luncheon on the sunny stoop of the cabin, 

 facing the water, when I caught a sudden 

 glimpse of a white-wing, as I felt sure, about 

 some small decaying gray logs on the edge 

 of the lake just before me, the remains of a 

 disused landing. The next moment the bird 

 dropped out of sight between two of them. 

 I sat motionless, glass in hand, and eyes 

 fixed (so I could almost have made oath) 

 upon the spot where he had disappeared. I 



