Birds of Buzzard's Roost 

 One for Each Week 



CHAPTER I. 



BUZZARD'S ROOST. 



Fall Creek has always had a fascination for me. I was 

 born within a half mile of its mouth, on Indiana Avenue, in the 

 City of Indianapolis, May 28, 1838. A bayou or branch of it 

 crossed the avenue near our home in the city, and this caused 

 my mother much anxiety, for I often stole away to it and 

 watched our neighbor Todd's ducks paddle and feed in it. 

 Those were the first birds with which I became acquainted. 



Buzzard's Roost, about which I am to write, is located on 

 Fall Creek about eight miles northeast from its mouth, and 

 about the same distance from the city of Indianapolis. When 

 I was about four years old my parents moved to a farm which 

 was situated within about one and a quarter miles of it and I 

 lived there with them in our log cabin home until I was al- 

 most nineteen years old. 



"Backward gazing through the shadows, 



As the evening fades away, 

 I perceive the little footprints, 



Where the morning sunlight lay, 

 Warm and mellow, on the pathway 



Leading to the open door 

 Of the cabin in the clearing, 



Where my soul reclines once more." 



The country then was new and our advantages few, but 

 we were happy in the fullest sense of that word. 



