winging over that I do not think of a huge 

 thousand-legger crawling the clouds. 



My glimpses of the geese are largely chance, 

 too. Several times, through the open window 

 by my table, I have heard the faint, far-off 

 honking, and have hurried to the roof in time to 

 watch the travelers disappear. One spring day 

 I was upon the roof when a large belated iiock 

 came over, headed north. It was the 20th of 

 April, and the morning had broken very warm. 

 I could see that the geese were hot and tired. 

 They were barely clearing the church spires. 

 On they came, their wedge wide and straggling, 

 until almost over me, when something happened. 

 The gander in the lead faltered and swerved, 

 the wedge lines wavered, the flock rushed to- 

 gether in confusion, wheeled, dropped, then 

 broke apart, and honking wildly, turned back 

 toward the bay. 



It was instant and complete demoralization. 

 A stronger gander, I think, could have led the 

 wedge unbroken over the city to some neigh- 

 boring pond, where the weakest of the stragglers, 

 however, must have fallen from sheer exhaustion. 



Scaling lower and lower across the roofs, the 

 [15] 



