Then there was something pleasing to the fancy in being so near to Mount Vernon. It formed a-sort of rich, historic background to our flitting and trivial experiences. Just where the eye of the great Captain would perhaps first strike the water as he came out in the morning to take a turn up and down his long piazza, the Club had formerly had a "blind," but the ice of a few weeks before our visit had carried it away. A little lower down, and in full view from his bedroom window, was the place where the shooting from the boxes was usually done. The duck is an early bird, and not much given to wandering about in the afternoon; hence it was thought not worth while to put out the decoys till the next morning. We would spend the afternoon roaming inland in quest of quail, or rabbits, or turkeys (for a brood of the last were known to lurk about the woods back there). It was a delightful afternoon's tramp through oak woods, pine barrens, and half-wild fields. We flushed several quail that the dog should have pointed, and put a rabbit to rout by a well-directed broadside, but brought no game to camp. We kicked about an old bushy clearing, where my friends had shot a wild turkey Thanksgiving Day, but the turkey could not be started again. One shooting had sufficed for it. We crossed or penetrated extensive pine woods that had once (perhaps in Washington's time) been cultivated fields; the mark of the plow was still clearly visible. The land had been thrown into ridges, after the manner of English fields, eight or ten feet wide, with a deep dead furrow between them for purposes of drainage. The pines were scrubby,--what are known as the loblolly pines,--and from ten to twelve inches through at the butt. In a low bottom, among some red cedars, I saw robins and several hermit thrushes, besides the yellow-rumped warbler.