A BAY-SIDE OUTING. 6 1 



larks, filling the air at once with sweet sounds. 

 How my heart leaped, my cheeks tingled ! With 

 what eagerness I strove to catch their every note ! 

 for dear to me now as, when a boy, the world 

 daily opened up a new scene of delights, is that 

 old, ever-new refrain of the meadow-lark / see 

 you -you cant see me. 



But I did see them. To the few scattered, 

 stunted trees they flew, and, perching at the very 

 tops, were sharply limned against the pale-gray 

 sky. Did I exert some subtle influence over 

 them? Whether or not, they soon returned, 

 and from hidden by-ways in the rank grass 

 sang again and again, to cheer me, while at 

 work. For not as a rambler merely, but to la- 

 bor diligently, had I come so far. 



Separated from the bay by a narrow strip 

 of meadow, rises a little hillock that tall weeds 

 would have hidden. This was one of our ob- 

 jective points ; the other was an adjoining sand- 

 ridge. Over the former we proposed to search 

 for whatsoever the Indians had left behind ; into 

 the latter we proposed to dig, believing some of 

 these people had been buried there ; all this we 

 did. The little hillock was a shell-heap, or 

 " kitchen refuse-heap," as they are called by Eu- 

 ropean archaeologists. Probably nothing tells so 

 plainly the story of the past as do these great 

 gatherings of burned and broken shells. So re- 



