I am called the Wood Pewee, but I don't always stay in the woods. If
you have an orchard or a nice garden, you will hear me singing there
in June.
People think I am not a happy bird, because my song seems so sad. They
are very much mistaken. I am just as happy as any other little fellow
dressed in feathers, and can flirt and flutter with the best of them.
_Pewee! Pewee! Peer!_
That is my song, and my mate thinks it is beautiful. She is never far
away, and always comes at my call.
Always, did I say?
No; one day, when we were busy building our nest--which is very
pretty, almost as dainty as that of our neighbor the Humming Bird--she
flew away to quite a distance to find some soft lining-stuff on which
to lay her eggs. I had been fetching and carrying all day the lichens
to put round the nest, which was hidden among the thick leaves on the
bough of a tree, and was resting by the side of it.
_Pewee! Pewee! Peer!_
"She will hear that," thought I, and again I sang it as loud as I
could.
"I'll bring that fellow down, too," said a boy, who surely had never
heard anything about our happy, innocent lives, and as I peered down
at him, he flung a large stone, which struck the bough on which I sat.
Oh, how frightened I was, and how quickly I flew away!
"He has killed my little mate," I thought. Still, I called in my
plaintive way, _Pewee! Pewee! Peer!_
A faint, low cry led me to the foot of a large tree, and there on the
ground lay my mate, struggling to rise and fly to me.
"I think my wing is broken," she sobbed. "Oh, that wicked, wicked
boy!"
I petted her with my broad, flat beak, and after a while she was able
to fly with me to our nest; but it was days and days before she was
out of pain. I am sure if that boy sees my story in BIRDS, he will
never give such an innocent _little_ creature misery again.
I dress plainly, in a coat of olive and brown, and they _do_ say my
manners are stiff and abrupt.
But my voice is very sweet, and there is something about it which
makes people say: "Dear little bird, sad little bird! what may your
name be?"
Then I answer:
_Pewee! Pewee! Peer!_