I had seen something new, and was only desirous to see more
of it. Who does not love an original character? For at least half an
hour the old mill was forgotten, while I chased the grackle about, as he
flew hither and thither, sometimes with a loggerhead shrike in furious
pursuit. Once I had gone a few rods into the palmetto scrub, partly to
be nearer the bird, but still more to enjoy the shadow of a pine, and
was standing under the tree, motionless, when a man came along the road
in a gig. "Surveying?" he asked, reining in his horse. "No, sir; I am
looking at a bird in the tree yonder." I wished him to go on, and
thought it best to gratify his curiosity at once. He was silent a
moment; then he said, "Looking at the old sugar house from there?" That
was too preposterous, and I answered with more voice, and perhaps with a
touch of impatience, "No, no; I am trying to see a bird in that
pine-tree." He was silent again. Then he gathered up the reins. "I'm so
deaf I can't hear you," he said, and drove on. "Good-by," I remarked, in
a needless undertone; "you're a good man, I've no doubt, but deaf people
shouldn't be inquisitive at long range."
The advice was sound enough, in itself considered; properly understood,
it might be held to contain, or at least to suggest, one of the
profoundest, and at the same time one of the most practical, truths of
all devout philosophy; but the testiness of its tone was little to my
credit.
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