_June 10th_.--As I write, 5-1/2 P.M., here by the creek, nothing can
exceed the quiet splendor and freshness around me. We had a heavy
shower, with brief thunder and lightning, in the middle of the day; and
since, overhead, one of those not uncommon yet indescribable skies
(in quality, not details or forms) of limpid blue, with rolling
silver-fringed clouds, and a pure-dazzling sun. For underlay, trees
in fulness of tender foliage--liquid, reedy, long-drawn notes of
birds--based by the fretful mewing of a querulous cat-bird, and the
pleasant chippering-shriek of two kingfishers. I have been watching the
latter the last half hour, on their regular evening frolic over and in
the stream; evidently a spree of the liveliest kind. They pursue each
other, whirling and wheeling around, with many a jocund downward dip,
splashing the spray in jets of diamonds--and then off they swoop, with
slanting wings and graceful flight, sometimes so near me I can plainly
see their dark-gray feather-bodies and milk-white necks.