Both of them
contained young ones (March 31 and April 2), as I knew by the continual
goings-in-and-out of the fathers and mothers. In dress the brown-head is
dingy, with little or nothing of the neat and attractive appearance of
our New England nuthatches.
In this pine-wood on the road to Moultrie I found no sign of the new
woodpecker or the new sparrow. Nor was I greatly disappointed. The place
itself was a sufficient novelty,--the place and the summer weather. The
pines murmured overhead, and the palmettos rustled all about. Now a
butterfly fluttered past me, and now a dragonfly. More than one little
flock of tree swallows went over the wood, and once a pair of phoebes
amused me by an uncommonly pretty lover's quarrel. Truly it was a
pleasant hour. In the midst of it there came along a man in a cart, with
a load of wood. We exchanged the time of day, and I remarked upon the
smallness of his load. Yes, he said; but it was a pretty heavy load to
drag seven or eight miles over such roads. Possibly he understood me as
implying that he seemed to be in rather small business, although I had
no such purpose, for he went on to say: "In 1861, when this beautiful
war broke out between our countries, my father owned niggers. We didn't
have to do _this_. But I don't complain. If I hadn't got a bullet in me,
I should do pretty well."
"Then you were in the war?" I said.
"Oh, yes, yes, sir! I was in the Confederate service.
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