64 FRESH FIELDS 



out in the rain and put a penny in her hand. After 

 a few pennies had been collected the music would 

 stop, and the singer disappear, — to drink up her 

 gains, I half suspect, hut do not know. I noticed 

 that she was never treated with rudeness or disre- 

 spect. The boys would pause and regard her occa- 

 sionally, but made no remark, or gesture, or grimace. 

 One afternoon a traveling show pitched its tent in 

 the broader part of the street, and by diligent grind- 

 ing of a hand-organ summoned all the children of 

 the place to see the wonders. The admission was 

 one penny, and I went in with the rest, and saw 

 the little man, the big dog, the happy family, and 

 the gaping, dirty-faced, but orderly crowd of boys 

 and girls. The Ecclefechan boys, with some of 

 whom I tried, not very successfully, to scrape an 

 acquaintance, I found a sober, quiet, modest set, 

 shy of strangers, and, like all country boys, incip- 

 ient naturalists. If you want to know where the 

 birds' -nests are, ask the boys. Hence, one Sunday 

 afternoon, meeting a couple of them on the Annan 

 road, I put the inquiry. They looked rather blank 

 and unresponsive at first; but I made them under- 

 stand I was in earnest, and wished to be shown 

 some nests. To stimulate their ornithology I offered 

 a penny for the first nest, twopence for the second, 

 threepence for the third, etc. , — a reward that, as 

 it turned out, lightened my burden of British cop- 

 per considerably; for these boys appeared to know 

 every nest in the neighborhood, and I suspect had 

 just then been making Sunday calls upon their feath- 



