82 Winter-green 



Can it be possible that I heard the creaking 

 of a rusty sign-board, and this Carolina wren 

 was born of my inner consciousness? Such 

 a suggestion came recently from an ornitholo- 

 gist ! What if the scales were to drop from 

 my eyes, only to find that here in my home, 

 on these old meadows, there never was a bird, 

 and the region was in its primeval, azoic con- 

 dition ? How the fellow would rejoice ! As 

 for me, I am glad that the ornithologist's 

 soulless birds, mere bones and feathers, keep 

 away. 



I followed a narrow wood-path that led 

 me into the very depths of the forest ; but 

 green leaves were still about me, and now I 

 heard a chatter as if some hidden friend were 

 laughing at me, and the blue-jay and golden- 

 winged woodpecker were near at hand and 

 questioning me rather than I them. They, 

 too, laughed at this zero weather, and the 

 woodpecker tapped on the hollow branch of 

 a primeval oak ; tapped and rattled with all 

 his might, and then turned to me as if for 

 applause. Then away to still more remote 

 recesses in the wood, laughing all the while. 

 I remembered the winter-green, and laughed, 

 too. For a while, as I stood there, the woods 



