His face was white and drawn, and the eyelids
drooped, as if he had not slept.
At the second turn he stopped, gazed abstractedly at the boards under
his feet, as a man sometimes does when his mind is on other things.
Mechanically he stooped to pick up a small iron nut that had slipped
from one of the bolts used in repairing the wheel, and in the same
abstracted way, still ignoring me, raised it to his eye, looked through
the hole for a moment, and then tossed it into the dam. The splash of
the iron striking the water frightened a bird, which arose in the air,
sang a clear, sweet note, and disappeared in the bushes on the opposite
bank. Jim started, turned his head quickly, following the flight of the
bird, and sank slowly back upon the bench, his face in his hands.
"There it is again," he cried out. "Every way I turn it's the same
thing. I can't even chuck nothin' overboard but I hear it."
"Hear what?" The keen anguish expressed in his voice had alarmed me.
"That song-sparrow--did ye hear it? I tell ye this thing'll drive me
crazy.
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