Killooleet, Little Sweet -Voice. 39 



Did the woods seem lonely to Killooleet when 

 we paddled away at last and left the wilderness for 

 another year ? That is a question which I would 

 give much, or watch long, to answer. There is 

 always a regret at leaving a good camping ground, 

 but I had never packed up so unwillingly before. 

 Killooleet was singing, cheery as ever; but my own 

 heart gave a minor chord of sadness to his trill that 

 was not there when he sang on my ridgepole. Before 

 leaving I had baked a loaf, big and hard, which I 

 fastened with stakes at the foot of the old cedar, with 

 a tin plate under it and a bark roof above, so that 

 when it rained, and insects were hidden under the 

 leaves, and their hunting was no fun because the 

 woods were wet, Killooleet and his little ones would 

 find food, and remember me. And so we paddled 

 away and left him to the wilderness. 



A year later my canoe touched the same old land- 

 ing. For ten months I had been in the city, where 

 Killooleet never sings, and where the wilderness is 

 only a memory. In the fall, on some long, tramps, I 

 had occasional glimpses of the little singer, solitary 

 now and silent, stealing southward ahead of the 

 winter. And in the spring he showed himself rarely 

 in the underbrush on country roads, eager, restless, 

 chirping, hurrying northward where the streams were 



