I made the best guess I could, and guessed wrong, as was
apparent after a while, when I found the road under deep water for
several rods. I objected to wading, and there was no ready way of going
round, since the oak and palmetto scrub crowded close up to the
roadside, and just here was all but impenetrable. What was still more
conclusive, the road was the wrong one, as the inundation proved, and,
for aught I could tell, might carry me far out of my course. I turned
back, therefore, under the midday sun, and by good luck a second attempt
brought me out of the woods very near where I had entered them.
I visited this particular piece of country but once afterward, having in
the mean time discovered a better place of the same sort along the
railroad, in the direction of Palatka. There, on a Sunday morning, I
heard my first pine-wood sparrow. Time and tune could hardly have been
in truer accord. The hour was of the quietest, the strain was of the
simplest, and the bird sang as if he were dreaming. For a long time I
let him go on without attempting to make certain who he was. He seemed
to be rather far off: if I waited his pleasure, he would perhaps move
toward me; if I disturbed him, he would probably become silent. So I sat
on the end of a sleeper and listened. It was not great music. It made me
think of the swamp sparrow; and the swamp sparrow is far from being a
great singer.
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