“Say, Lilian, aren’t you a scientist!” said Isabel, hitching along on the same rock.
“I am. I’m getting bird songs. That ‘right here’ of the chewink is new to me. See him?”
“Sh-sh!” The girls stopped their low conversation as the long, sweet notes of a white-throated sparrow began. Two or three others took up the fairy music, while the girls sat quiet to hear it.
“The dears!” exclaimed Cathalina, as the song ended.
“Of course those crows would have to caw,” said Isabel. “I call them the dogs of the bird world, always barking like watch dogs to tell that we are here. Once I went into a dandy woods and the crows made such a fuss that I didn’t see a bird.”
“Did you ever see anything prettier than these blueberries?” asked Hilary. “They look like flowers growing over there on the big rocks and between. I shall always think of grey rocks, moss, lichens and blueberries. They match the sky and bay, don’t they? The color of the little green plant is pretty, too. I shall never get them mixed with huckleberries again. These taller plants are a sort of blueberry, too, somebody said. They are dark, almost black, when they are ripe.”
“I think I’ve eaten a quart already. I don’t know whether to eat blueberries or look at birds,” and Isabel put a fresh handful into her mouth. “There is a dark berry called dog-berry, so be sure you know the difference in the dark berries before you eat ’em when they’re ripe. I’m not one of those that taste everything and get poisoned. Dogberries are poisonous. But these heavenly berries!”
“Look, girls!” called Mother Nature, breaking the laws of silence for once, that all might see the immense eagle which was flying over. “See his white head and tail.”
The party moved on, for the hike was to cover the distance to “First Trott’s” and back. In Merrymeeting parlance, “First Trott’s” marked a distance of a mile and a half to where lived a family by the name Trott, while “Second Trott’s” was located a mile further out.
Birches, arborvitæ trees, tall or tiny, balsams, white pines, oaks, and other trees characteristic of the Maine woods lined the way. Back in the shade of the pine trees grew that strange ghost flower, the Indian pipe. Isabel counted the slender trunks in one clump of young birches and found fifteen.