Another junco's nest beside a Catskill trout stream sticks in my memory. It was in an open grassy place amid the trees and bushes near the highway. There were ladies in our trouting party and I called them to come and see the treasure I had found.
"Where is it?" one of them said, as she stopped and looked around a few paces from me.
"It is within six feet of you," I replied. She looked about, incredulous, as it seemed an unlikely place for a nest of any sort, so open was it, and so easily swept by the first glance.
As she stepped along, perplexed, I said, "Now it is within one yard of you." She thought I was joking; but stooping down, determined not to be baffled, she espied it sheltered by a thin, mossy stone that stood up seven or eight inches above the turf, tilted at an angle of about that of one side of a house-roof. Under this the nest was tucked, sheltered from the sun and rain, and hidden from all but the sharpest eye.
X
A BREATH OF APRIL
I
It would not be easy to say which is our finest or most beautiful wild flower, but certainly the most poetic and the best beloved is the arbutus. So early, so lowly, so secretive there in the moss and dry leaves, so fragrant, tinged with the hues of youth and health, so hardy and homelike, it touches the heart as no other does.