224 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
whip-poor-wills. One hour and eleven minutes 
from my office in time, thirty-seven miles in space, 
but a whole life away in peace and happiness and rest, 
I have a little cabin in the heart of the barrens. 
There in spring I sleep swinging in a hammock above 
a great bush of mountain-laurel, ghost-white against 
the smoky water of the stream. 
Below me in the marsh, where the pitcher-plants 
bloom among the sweet pepper and blueberry bushes, 
is a pitch-pine sapling bent almost into a circle. 
Sometimes my friends cut exploration paths through 
the bush or, in the winter, search for firewood, but no 
one is ever allowed to touch that bent tree. There 
some spring night, as a little breeze, heavy with the 
scent of white azalea and creamy magnolia blossoms, 
sways me back and forth, from the bent tree showing 
dimly in the moonlight through the tree-trunks, 
the whip-poor-will perches himself, lengthwise al- 
ways, and sings and sings. Through the dark rings 
his hurried stressed song, with the accent heavy on 
the first syllable. The singer is always afraid that 
some one may stop him before he finishes, and he 
hurries and hurries with a little click between the 
triads. At exactly eight o’clock, and again at just 
two in the morning, he sings there. Up in the moun- 
tains, where we once found the whip-poor-will’s two 
lustrous eggs lying like great spotted pearls on a 
naked bed of leaves, he sings at eight, at ten, and at 
three. Some people dislike the song. To me the wild 
lonely voice of the unseen singer pealing out in the 
dark has a strange fascination. 
