A CUCKOO'S NEST. 23 



strange thy doings how unforeseen thy reckon- 

 ings with these our souls and bodies! 



The yellow-billed cuckoos or rain crows here- 

 abouts evidently raise two or more broods each 

 season. This morn I flushed one from her nest 

 on the outer rim of a thicket of prickly-ash, 

 which grows on a little terrace by the side of 

 the brook. The nest, a frail looking affair of 

 small sticks and twigs placed loosely together, 

 contained four medium sized light blue eggs. 

 The mother flitted noiselessly a few feet into 

 the depths of the thicket, then paused and 

 viewed with anxious eye my movements. After 

 looking at her home and satisfying my curiosity 

 I passed on, and soon heard her low cackle of 

 joy as, returning, she found her treasures un- 

 harmed. 



It is 5:30 P. M. and the shadows of the oak 

 trees in front of my tent fall far to the east- 

 ward. A hot day it has been, yet tempered by 

 the breath of the south wind which in gentle 

 zephyrs has come and gone for many hours. 

 A lazy afternoon have I passed lying on the 

 grass and reading some of the so-called short- 

 story masterpieces, as Brown's "Rab and his 

 Friends"; Hawthorne's "Ethan Brand"; Poe's 

 "Pit and the Pendulum"; Stevenson's "Will 

 o' the Mill," etc. For some of them it was my 

 second reading. Hawthorne's and Poe's tales 

 are not such as to beget pleasant dreams, but 



