SOME HERMITS OF THE MARSH 



RETURNING home from a long April 

 walk, the other day, I heard, as I was plod- 

 ding across a willow-bordered causeway 

 that crossed a marsh, a sound like one 

 pumping water from a well with an old- 

 fashioned, wheezy, wooden pump. There 

 was no house in sight anywhere, and the 

 marsh was wide and deserted, yet I instinct- 

 ively looked in the direction of the sound, 

 half expecting to see some bare-armed coun- 

 try girl pumping a pitcherful of water for 

 the supper-table, or a thirsty farm laborer, 

 with one hand over the nozzle of the pump- 

 spout, bending down to drink the cool 

 stream that spurted from his fingers. But 

 in a moment I knew that the deceptive 

 sound I had heard was made by the bittern, 

 or "stake-driver," a large, shy, ungainly 

 bird of the wader family, that tenants re- 

 mote marshes, and seldom shows itself in 

 the open or upon the wing, unless startled 

 from its muddy retreat by the gunner or the 

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