TGe Lay of the Band 
to enter and tread the paths where so long I had 
slipped to and fro as a shadow. 
But what a pity ever to cross such a country! ever 
to map these unexplored child-lands to a scale of 
after years! I tramped the Bear Swamp over from 
edge to edge, letting the light of day into the deep- 
est of its recesses, and found—a turkey buzzard’s 
nest. 
The silent streams, the stumps, the trails, I found, 
too, and there, it seems, they must be found a cen- 
tury hence; but the haunting mysteries of the great 
swamp fled away before me, and are gone forever. 
So much did I pay for my buzzard’s nest. 
The cost in time and trouble was what came near 
undoing my good uncle, with whom I was staying 
near the swamp. “What in thunderation!” he ex- 
claimed, when I made known my desires. “From 
Boston to Haleyville to see a buzzard’s nest!” As 
there are some things that even one’s wife cannot 
quite understand, I didn’t try to reason the matter 
of buzzards’ nests with an uncle. If it had been a 
hawk’s nest or a cardinal’s, he would have thought 
nothing strange. But a buzzard’s! 
Perhaps my years of absence from the skies of the 
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