SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 133 



which are inexplicable to ourselves, and once in 

 a very great while, perhaps, it would puzzle even 

 our next-door neighbors to render a complete ac- 

 count of our motives. 



Whatever the robin meant, however, and no 

 doubt there was some good reason for his con- 

 duct, he had given my curiosity the needed 

 jog. Now, at last, I would do what I had often 

 dreamed of doing, learn something about the 

 birds of my own region, and be able to recognize 

 at least the more common ones when I saw them. 



The interest of the study proved to be the 

 greater for my ignorance, which, to speak 

 within bounds, was nothing short of wonderful ; 

 perhaps I might appropriately use a more fash- 

 ionable word, and call it phenomenal. All my 

 life long I had had a kind of passion for being 

 out-of-doors ; and, to tell the truth, I had been 

 so often seen wandering by myself in out-of-the- 

 way wood-paths, or sitting idly about on stone 

 walls in lonesome pastures, that some of my 

 Philistine townsmen had most likely come to 

 look upon me as no better than a vagabond. 

 Yet I was not a vagabond, for all that. I liked 

 work, perhaps, as well as the generality of peo- 

 ple. But I was unfortunate in this respect : 

 while I enjoyed in-door work, I hated to be in 

 the house ; and, on the other hand, while I en- 

 joyed being out-of-doors, I hated all manner of 



