62 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



Trouble and Mount Misery, where the rattlesnake 

 den is, and Apple-Pie Hill, and Friendship, and a 

 host of other places that I have not explored. 



To-day I walked for miles and miles through 

 stretches of low, gleaming pines and past pools set in 

 golden sphagnum moss. The wind had died down, 

 and the silence seeped in and carried with it the com- 

 fort of the wilderness. The first friend I met was a 

 little bird that dived like a mouse into a pile of brush. 

 I saw a brook, and hurried to it, knowing that if 

 the bird were a winter wren it could not possibly 

 keep from running along the edges of that brook. 

 Sure enough, in a minute I saw it darting in and out 

 of holes and with cocked tail curtsying on the stones. 

 It is the next to the smallest of our five wrens only 

 the rare short-billed marsh wren is tinier. 



To-day all through the tree-tops I heard the 

 high-pitched tiny notes of that tiny bird, the golden- 

 crowned kinglet. Its forked tail, striped head, and 

 wing-bars are the field-marks by which it can be told 

 in spite of its quick movements. It is the third 

 smallest of all our birds: only the hummingbird and 

 the short-billed marsh wren are smaller. Beyond 

 the kinglet I heard the clicking alarm-notes and saw 

 a flutter of the white skirts of a junco as it flew up 

 ahead of me, showing its white tail-feathers, while 

 in the woods a silver-and-blue bird sprang out of the 

 bushes, for a wonder without a sound. It was the 

 blue jay, which scolds and squalls all day long. 

 Overhead, in spite of the bitter cold, the grim black 

 buzzards, with their fringed wings and black-and- 



