362 UPLA^'D SHOOTIXG. 



ishmeiit from camp in case of failure — two days being 

 allowed in which, to accomplish it. 



Before sunrise next morning I was seated on a log, 

 half a mile from camp, anxionsly waiting for Mr. 

 Gobbler to open the game at which he and I were to 

 play. It was a lovelj' spring morning. The violets and 

 the daisies had, ere this, breathed out their sweet 

 lives: the "red buds," that erstwhile wreathed with' 

 pinkish blossoms every branch of the dark, polished 

 iron-wood trees, had all fallen, faded and limp, to the 

 earth in showers of sweetness, and, in the dim morning 

 light, looked like rose-leaves on the floor of a deserted 

 banquet-haU. The heavy, humid air still retained a faint 

 odor of the dying wild-plnm blossoms, while the snowy 

 dogwood flowers were busily breaking their buds into 

 bloom, bridal-^vreathing the gladsome spring. A mag- 

 nificent trumpet-vine, right over me, clinging to a dead 

 tree, and enwrapping itself around and about it, embow- 

 ering it in a shaft of living green, reaching skyward, 

 reminds me of Wirt" s beautiful words about the vine and 

 the oak — the wife, and the broken, discouraged husband. 

 The time of its flowers, grand carnation trumpets, is not 

 yet. Delicate silvery-green leaves are struggling into 

 form and dimension on ehn, and oak. and blackbeny. 

 and alder, while, here and there, a greenbrier-vine 

 unfolds its broad young leaves, ruddy with vigor, and 

 lovely with blushing beauty, not unlike delicate-tinted 

 Venetian gloss. The woods teem with life, and a thou- 

 sand wildwood voices are heard, from the scarlet song- 

 ster right in front of me, sending forth every few- 

 momenta his praisef til ••tube. tube, tube," as he sits on 

 topmost twig of a tall elm, whose gracef idly rounded and 

 upreaching bowers make for him a throne, silverj'- 

 sheeny in the first rays of the morning sun. to the blue- 

 backed, white-breasted chorister — whose name I never 



