A LOVELY NOOK. 27 



occasion when I was looking anxiously to see a 

 certain family of nestlings make exit from the 

 nest, a building that I supposed to be a shut-up 

 store-room was thrown open, a wash-tub appeared 

 before the door, and I found that a family of 

 eight, including four children, had moved in, 

 not thirty feet from my chosen seat, and of 

 course to the utter destruction of any seclusion. 



I could not select a single spot in the neigh- 

 borhood, favorable to quiet study, without hav- 

 ing it made desolate or turned into a thorough- 

 fare. The loveliest place I found at all was a 

 footpath passing for about fifty feet through a 

 fringe of low cedar, sweet gum trees, and shrubs 

 loaded with pink lily-of-the-valley shaped blos- 

 soms. Across the path ran a brooklet, a mere 

 thread of water, so shallow that small birds 

 stood in the middle to bathe, though it deepened 

 into a pool below, where frogs croaked and 

 plunged. It was cool ; it was quiet, far from 

 the everywhere present negro hut ; there was no 

 sound but the trickle of the streamlet as it fell 

 into the pool, and the softened roar of the ocean 

 beyond' the wide salt marsh. 



To this nook I went every day, always trying 

 to surprise the birds at their usual occupations, 

 but never quite succeeding ; for steal in quietly 

 as I might I always heard low remarks, a slight 

 flutter of wings, and usually saw a dark form 



