240 Union Bay 



of the boy William in the play, The Return of Peter Grimm. 

 The boy rushed into the room carrying the two circus tickets 

 which Peter had asked him to get. He refused to believe the 

 doctor's statement that Peter was dead, and he cried out: 

 "He can't be dead, I've got his ticket to the circus." 



Out in the canoe I found that it was a dancing day. Multi- 

 tudes of small insects dipped almost to the water surface and 

 then rose a foot or so to repeat the movement. The rhythmic 

 flight entirely surrounded me and may have covered the en- 

 tire marsh. Then came dime-sized moths which flew, not 

 with the graceful rise and fall of the first performers, but 

 clumsily and abruptly. I could hear the faint . buzz of their 

 wings if they were near the canoe. This abundance of food 

 was not long overlooked: a pair of sparrows hopped along a 

 floating log and skillfully picked off the insects that came 

 within range. The barn swallows which had been assembling 

 in the marsh appeared in great numbers, the birds of the year 

 distinguishing themselves by the awkwardness of their flight 

 and the clumsiness of their hunting. Many thousands of in- 

 sects must have been taken but thousands more still danced 

 in abundance. 



I found that it was to be a day of activity everywhere. 

 Practice planes from some aviation school droned back and 

 forth at uncomfortably low levels. The noise of a loud speaker 

 came from the stadium— the half-completed sentences indi- 

 cated that they were testing the system. Somewhere on the 

 campus the assembled band practiced the promising strains 

 of "Roll Out the Barrel." Workmen walked about the sta- 

 dium and gave the preparations a final look. The great struc- 

 ture stood cold and lonesome, but I knew that shortly it 

 would be vitalized by the bright colors of the crowd. 



The fact that the stadium would soon be full of moving, 

 cheering people did not affect the activity in the marsh. The 

 blackbirds, which always used the big cottonwood trees at 

 the north end for their fall gathering, chattered and flew 



