"
"Yes, yes," I answered, and he resumed his march.
The road was traveled mostly by negroes. On Sunday afternoons it looked
quite like a flower garden, it was so full of bright dresses coming home
from church. "Now'-days folks git religion so easy!" one young woman
said to another, as they passed me. She was a conservative. I did not
join the procession, but on other days I talked, first and last, with a
good many of the people; from the preacher, who carried a handsome cane
and made me a still handsomer bow, down to a serious little fellow of
six or seven years, whom I found standing at the foot of the hill,
beside a bundle of dead wood. He was carrying it home for the family
stove, and had set it down for a minute's rest. I said something about
his burden, and as I went on he called after me: "What kind of birds are
you hunting for? Ricebirds?" I answered that I was looking for birds of
all sorts. Had he seen any ricebirds lately? Yes, he said; he started a
flock the other day up on[1] the hill. "How did they look?" said I.
"They is red blackbirds," he returned. This was not the first time I had
heard the redwing called the ricebird. But how did the boy know me for a
bird-gazer? That was a mystery. It came over me all at once that
possibly I had become better known in the community than I had in the
least suspected; and then I remembered my field-glass. That, as I could
not help being aware, was an object of continual attention.
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