"Oh, what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made."
But when he had uttered his message he sank back into the grass, and I tore myself away from the bobolink meadow, and came home far richer and far happier than when I set out.
XV.
THE BOBOLINK'S NEST.
My acquaintance with the bobolink was resumed a year later in the lovely summer home of a friend in the Black River Country, within sight of the Adirondack hills. We had found many nests in the woods and orchards, but the meadow had been safe from our feet, partly because of the rich crops that covered it, but more, perhaps, because of the hopelessness of the search over the broad fields for anything so easily hidden as a ground nest.
One evening, however, our host with a triumphant air invited us to walk, declaring that he could show us a nest more interesting than we had found.
The gentleman was a joker, and his statements were apt to be somewhat embellished by his vivid imagination, so that we accepted them with caution; but now he looked exultant, and we believed him, especially as he took his hat and stick and started off.
Down the road we went, a single carriage-way between two banks of grass a yard high. After carefully taking his bearings by certain small elm-trees, and searching diligently about for an inconspicuous dead twig he had planted as a guide-post, our leader confidently waded into the green depths, parted the stalks in a certain spot, and bade us look.