242 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



II. 

 MOONLIGHT. 



Sunset in late December comes long before 

 tea time, so I lingered in the wren orchard 

 while the orange light came and went in the 

 west, and until the big yellow moon swung free 

 from the eastern elms, and began her voyage 

 across the chilly sky. I had been worrying the 

 crows at their roost in a grove of pitch pines 

 on the very crest of the Arlington ridge. Just 

 as they skulked into the grove on one side, I 

 glided in from the other. Silently they floated 

 through the twilight, and gained a thickly 

 branching pine. In its upper foliage they 

 crowded together and prepared for sleep. Then 

 they heard my footsteps on the twigs and snow 

 crust below, and suddenly a great stirring, and 

 rubbing of wings and twigs told of their flight. 

 At first they said nothing, but when they had 

 reached the upper air they circled over the grove 

 cawing spitefully. A small flock of pine gros- 

 beaks dropped into the grove, and after the 

 brightest of the golden light had faded from be- 

 hind far Wachusett I heard a small troop of 

 kinglets come in for their night's lodging. The 

 crows came back to their favorite tree, and when 

 I disturbed them a second time nine of them 

 flew away full of wrath. 



