PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 293 
the most practiced deceit, no doubt secure in their 
faith that you cannot see them, although you have 
them in your hand. You hold them thus only a mo- 
ment, your pleasure in the contact clouded by 
thought of the suffering of that motionless little 
mother under the log. Yielding to a whimsical im- 
pulse, you place a light kiss on the top of each little 
head, then lay them on the ground side by side, 
and retreat backwards at some distance, and watch 
to see them go. But they do not go. You stand 
with your eyes on that one spot until they ache, 
and then in a moment of forgetfulness you look off 
to the blue mountains beyond. But only for a mo- 
ment, a little sound like a quick sigh brings you 
quickly back to business. You focus your eyes on 
the spot — it is vacant ! You know it is the spot, 
for you carefully marked it in your mind ; the stone 
is there — but they are not. Neither is that bright 
eye any longer visible under the log. They fooled 
you, after all. Not the slightest sound, the least mo- 
tion that could attract attention, and they have van- 
ished very much like a dream. They have fooled 
you? They think so, but it is really the other way, 
for see, those two you held in your hand did not 
really escape — you have them yet, and they have 
never been able to grow up or change since that 
day. Two little downy birds, like happy dreams, 
must run about the pleasant aisles of Pisgah forest 
to all eternity with a kiss hovering like a butter- 
fly above each little head. 
The ruffed grouse, "pheasant," the people call it, 
