Her mother stood at an open window, inhaling the evening fragrance of flowers, and occasionally listening to the wild note of the mysterious whippoorwill, that came from a thicket of forest-trees in the distance.

A startled whippoorwill flashed into shadowy night from the rail as he laid his hand upon it, and, searching for the seat which Letty's invalid had built for her, he sank down, burying his head in his hands.

The cluck and coo of the cuckoo, the bubbling song of bobolink in buff and black, the watery trill of the stream-loving swamp-sparrow, the whispered whistle of the stealthy, darkness-haunting whippoorwill, the gurgle and gargle of the cow-bunting,he knew each and all, better than did Audubon, Nuttall, or Wilson.