THE O’LINCOLN FAMILY

A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in a grove;

Some were warbling cheerily and some were making love.

There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,—

A livelier set were never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle:—

Crying “Whew, shew, Wadolincon; see, see, Bobolincon

Down among the tickle tops, hiding in the buttercups;

I know the saucy chap; I see his shining cap

Bobbing there in the clover,—see, see, see!”

Up flies Bobolincon perching on an apple tree;

Startled by his rival’s song, quickened by his raillery.

Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air,

And merrily he turns about and warns him to beware!

“’Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O!

Wait a week, till flowers are cheery; wait a week ere you marry,

Be sure of a house wherein to tarry;

Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!”

Every one’s a funny fellow; every one’s a little mellow;

Follow, follow, follow, follow, o’er the hill and in the hollow.

Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly;

They cross and turn, and in and out, down the middle, and wheel about,

With a “Phew, shew, Wadolincon; listen to me, Bobolincon!

Happy’s the wooing that’s speedily doing, that’s speedily doing,

That’s merry and over with the bloom of the clover;

Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!”

O what a happy life they lead, over hill and in the mead!

How they sing and how they play! See, that fly away, away!

Now they gambol o’er the clearing—off again, and then appearing;

Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar and now they sing,

“We must all be merry and moving, we all must be happy and loving;

For when the midsummer has come and the grain has ripened its ear,

The haymakers scatter our young and we mourn for the rest of the year;

Then, Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste away!”

—Wilson Flagg, in _Birds and Seasons in New England_.

XVI

TREASURE-TROVE AT THE SHORE

_The Herring or Harbour Gull_

The autumn had been clear and fine, and the hillside farmers of Fair

Meadows township had their out-of-door work well in hand by

Thanksgiving. The fall-sown rye was well up, and the fields that were to

lie fallow and be sweetened by the frost were ploughed and in good

shape. Ice-cutting, on the chain of large ponds that lay in the valley

between the hills north of the river woods, was an important industry of

the region, so that every one was anxious to have the ice form clear and

firm before snowfall. As yet, however, there had been no signs of

either, except the thin ice with which Black Frost always covers the

roof, gutters, water-pails, and shallow pools when he prowls round in

the early morning, as if merely to let the good folks know of his

presence, and to prepare them for his gentler mediating brother, Snow.

The day after Thanksgiving the wind began to blow, not in mere passing

gusts, but steadily and systematically. Then, too, it came from a

strange quarter for that season—the extreme southeast. This was the

wind to drive the sea into the bay and force the water high on shore.

Such winds, at this season, piled the elastic brown seaweed in long

lines high above tide-water, and many a farmer, and market-gardener, as

he ate his supper, laid plans to drive down to the beach next morning,

with a double team, and secure a full load of the weed for covering his

strawberry or asparagus beds.

Before morning, however, a driving rain set in that lasted for two days

and kept everybody house-bound. The roadways ran water like rivers, and,

by the time the storm lessened at sunset Sunday evening, there was

barely a leaf left on the apple trees of the Birdland orchard, and

Goldilocks was well-nigh heartbroken over the state of the

lunch-counter, for, in spite of the protecting roof, the broken biscuits

turned to paste, the suet hung in rags, and as for the kernels of

cracked corn and the buckwheat, they had swelled as if they thought it

was a spring rain and it was their duty to grow. So that Goldilocks was

worried lest some Juncos and Goldfinches that made a hearty meal upon

the grains, in spite of the rain, should suffer from a fit of

indigestion.

Early Monday morning, when he returned to milk, the hired man at Tommy

Todd’s, who had been spending the night with his brother at one of the

little huts four miles below on the shore road, brought word that the

great storm had, as he expressed it, “heaved” the deep-water oyster-beds

that extended out through the bay and that in addition to the seaweed,

the beach was completely covered with fine large oysters, bushels and

bushels of them.

How the news spread, nobody knew, but by half-past eight every available

team within a mile of Foxes Corners school was “hooked up” and entire

families were hurrying toward the beach in every sort of vehicle, to

gather up this unexpected treasure-trove of the sea.

The parents seemed to have entirely forgotten that school began at nine,

and it was not to be expected that the children should remind them. And,

truth be told, when Jared Barnes gathered his flock, grandma included,

into the hay wagon, Sarah and Ruth, conscientious as they usually were

about their lessons, entirely forgot the day of the week, so eager were

they for the fray; for the prospect, not only of oysters to roast and

stew, but of oysters to pickle and keep, was too great a temptation to

resist.

Miss Wilde, who arrived at the schoolhouse rather earlier than usual,

found the door locked, and no fire in the stove. It was Dave’s week to

tend the fire, and, as Miss Wilde stood in the open doorway pondering on

the matter, one of the most exacting of the school committee men came

bumping along in a lumber cart. Pulling up his horses so suddenly that a

neighbour who was with him tipped backward off the seat, he called to

the astonished teacher: “You had best close up and go home; you won’t

have any pupils to-day. Or else come down, and hold school on the shore!

The rest of the committee will probably meet together in a few minutes,

and we’ll vote to extend Thanksgiving holidays over to-day.” So saying,

he cracked his whip and rattled downhill, leaving Miss Wilde to wonder

if he was losing his mind, or the world was turning topsyturvy, or if

she was still asleep, for it was beginning to be hard to wake up as the

mornings shortened.

Miss Wilde locked the door and started to walk toward Eliza Clausen’s

house, that being the nearest place where she could possibly find out

what was happening. As she reached the cross-road that met the turnpike

a little above the school, she heard the sharp trot of hoofs, and,

turning in that direction, saw Jacob Hughes driving the depot rockaway,

Goldilocks being beside him and Gray Lady seated behind. Goldilocks

waved her hand on seeing Miss Wilde, and in another minute “teacher” was

seated beside Gray Lady, and not only knew of the avalanche of oysters,

but was herself on the way to the shore with her friends, who were

going, not for the sake of the oysters, but to enjoy what was sure to be

a picturesque scene, with the shell-strewn beach, the sharp bluff on the

left, and the long sand-bar, with its lighthouse on the right, for a

setting. Nor were they disappointed.

For once tell-tale news did not exaggerate, and, though there were many

cut and scratched fingers from the sharp shells, before noon there was

no one who had not gathered all the oysters he could carry. The more

thrifty among the men also began to gather the seaweed into heaps safe

from the incoming tide, so that they might be sure of finding it the

next day, while the women and children gathered driftwood and, making

fireplaces of a few stones, heated the coffee they had brought. For,

though the sun was now shining clear, and the wind had dropped to a

little breeze that scarcely moved the surface of the tide pools, there

was a growing keenness in the air that named the month “December,” and

promised the wind would be in the northwest by night.

[Illustration: HERRING GULLS]

In spite of the unusual human picture before them, that which interested

Gray Lady, Miss Wilde, and Goldilocks the most were the Gulls that

covered the bare sand-bar, waded in the shallow pools, and clambered

among the stones in search of food, which they picked out with their

stout, hooked bills, then flew swiftly overhead toward the creek, across

the salt meadows, with a shrill cry, such as the creaking windlass of a

well gives when the rope plays out quickly and the bucket

drops—“quake-wake-wake.”

Further out, in the arm of the bar, where there was no current, and the

water was deep and smooth, many Gulls were resting motionless as white

skiffs at anchor, or flying and diving for food in the wake of some

boats that were evidently grappling to discover the extent of the damage

to the oyster-beds.

“How many kinds of Gulls are there?” asked Goldilocks. “Three, I should

think, unless the males and the females were different.”

“The Gulls here are all Herring, or, as the Wise Men now wish them

called, ‘Harbour Gulls.’ The old birds have the pure white breasts and

pearly gray, or what is sometimes called ‘Gull-blue,’ upper parts and

the black-and-white wing-markings. The mixed and streaked ash, buff, and

brown birds are the young of the year, while the black-and-white patched

birds are not Gulls, but Old Squaw Ducks. These have spent the winter

about the bay and bar ever since I can remember, and, strangely enough,

both Gulls and Ducks seem to be no less in number than they were twenty

years ago. That is probably because the Gulls are protected, and the

Ducks’ flesh is so tough that even a hungry dog could hardly tear it

apart. I hope your children are noticing these birds while they are

gathering driftwood for the fires,” Gray Lady said to Miss Wilde. “It is

very seldom that they come to the shore as late as this, or see the

Gulls in such numbers. It seems to-day as though the storm must have

driven all that belong to many miles of coast to take shelter in this

bay.”

“Yes, they are looking,” said Goldilocks, “for Sarah and Tommy and Dave

and Clary, who are all together by the nearest fire, are watching and

pointing to the Gulls that are over by the boats, and I think that Bobby

has found a dead Gull tangled in seaweed and he is showing it to the

others.”

“Then I foresee that the Harbour Gull will be the bird of next Friday

afternoon,” said Gray Lady, as they turned homeward, taking Miss Wilde

with them for lunch, so that Gray Lady might talk over a new plan

concerning the old farm-house in the corner of the orchard, with its

great stone chimney where the Swifts loved to build.

* * * * *

As Gray Lady had expected, the next Friday afternoon, when she went to

Foxes Corners schoolhouse, she was greeted by many enthusiastic accounts

of the stolen holiday at the shore, but a perfect chorus of questions

arose about the “big birds that fly and swim and yet aren’t quite like

Ducks”; while Bobby proudly produced his treasured Gull, wrapped in a

newspaper, at the same time assuring Gray Lady, as became a member of

the Kind Hearts’ Club, that he hadn’t thrown a stone at it, or anything,

and that it was “drowned dead in the seaweed.” All of which she already

knew to be true.

“Why aren’t the Gulls there in the summer when we go down camping and

clamming?” asked Tommy.

“Because,” said Gray Lady, “they do not like very warm weather, and

nowadays at least, though they live all through North America, they do

not nest on the Atlantic coast south of Maine. For this reason, we

seldom see them between May and October, and that is the very time that

you children and people in general visit the shore.”

“It must take a pretty big tree to hold a Gull’s nest,” said Dave,

picking up the bird and weighing it in his hand; “it’s lots bigger than

a Crow.”

“Yes; a Gull measures two feet in length (that is, from the tip of its

beak over its back to the tail, which is the way the length of a bird is

reckoned), and is quite three feet across the spread of its open wings,

while the body of the Crow is five inches shorter and the wings only

spread a little over two feet.

“You probably noticed, the other day, what very long, pointed wings the

Gulls have. But though these Gulls do sometimes nest in fairly high

trees and in bushes, it is not common, and their favourite place is on

the gray shingle, and among the stones of rocky beaches well above

tide-water, or else between tussocks of beach grass or sheltering pieces

of driftwood.

“As a Gull’s chief food is gleaned from the sea, it must nest as close

as possible to its source of supply. You can easily see that so large a

bird could never be free from annoyance on our bathing beaches or

offshore islands that are used as summer resorts; so, as people flocked

to the shore, more and more, the places where Gulls might nest in

comfort grew fewer and fewer, and they were driven to the remote islands

like those off the Maine coast, Great Duck Island, No Man’s Land, and

others, and it is at Great Duck Island that is to be found the largest

colony of Gulls within the United States.

“But even here and on many lesser islands, with only lighthouses and

their keepers for company, where there were no summer cottages or

pleasure-seekers, until a few years ago, the Gulls were not safe, for

they, like the White Herons of the South, were bonnet martyrs.”

“Bonnet martyrs!” exclaimed Eliza Clausen, jumping as if some one had

stuck a pin in her. “I don’t think they would look one bit nice on hats;

why, they are so big that there wouldn’t be any hat, but all bird.”

“You are quite right,” said Gray Lady, “but the whole Gull was not used.

These beautiful white breast-feathers were made into turbans. Perhaps,

on one side of these, a smaller cousin of the Gull, the Tern, or Sea

Swallow, with its coral-red beak, would be perched by way of finish. Or

else, soft bands made of the breast, and some of the handsomest wing

quills were used for trimming.

“Not only were these feathers sold wholesale to the plume merchants and

milliners, but people who went to the coast resorts would buy them of

the sailors simply because they were pretty, without giving a thought to

the lives they cost, or of how desolate and lonely the shores would be

when there were no more Gulls.

“There are comparatively few people, I earnestly believe, who would wear

feathers for ornament if they realized the waste of life that the habit

causes. It is largely because people do not stop to think, and they do

not associate the happy living bird with the lifeless feathers in the

milliner’s window. But now that the Wise Men—yes, and wise women,

too—have explained the matter, the protection of these beautiful

sea-birds is an established fact.

“This bird was called ‘Herring Gull,’ because by hovering over the

schools of Herring where they swam, and diving to get them for food,

they told the fishermen, who spend their lives upon the ocean on the

lookout, where the fish were to be found. Now, though the Gulls still do

this, they do better work, also, for they spend the time that they are

away from their nesting-homes about the harbours of the large cities,

making daily trips up the rivers and cleansing the water of refuse, upon

which they feed. For this reason, ‘Harbour Gull’ seems to be a better

name for them.

“They are very sociable birds at all times of the year, keeping in

colonies even in the breeding season, a time when song- and other

land-birds pair, and prefer to be alone. The nests, when on the ground

or upon flat rocks, are built of grass, mosses, seaweed, and bits of

soft driftwood formed into a shallow bowl. If the edges of this crumble

or flatten while the birds are sitting, they use bunches of fresh grass

or seaweed to keep it in repair, with the result that the nest is not

only a very tasteful object, but it blends perfectly with its

surroundings.

“The eggs are very interesting because no two seem to be of the same

colour, being of every shade of blue and gray, from the colour of summer

sky and sand to the tint of the many-coloured, water-soaked rocks

themselves. The markings vary also in shape and size, and are in every

shade of brown, through lilac and purple, to black. The parents are very

devoted to their nests, and take turns in sitting, though the eggs are

often left to the care of the sun on days when it is sufficiently warm.

When the young are first hatched, though covered with down, they are

very weak in the neck and helpless; but in the course of a few hours the

little Gulls are strong enough to walk, and the instinct to hide at the

approach of anything strange comes to them very suddenly, so that a Gull

only three or four hours old will slip out of the nest and either hide

beneath a few grass blades or flatten itself in the sand, where, owing

to its spotted, colour-protective down, it is almost invisible, so well

does Nature care for her children—provided that man does not interfere.

When a Gull nests in a tree, however, the little birds, not feeling the

same necessity for hiding, do not try to leave the nest until the growth

of their wings will let them fly.

“On the sea beaches squids and marine refuse are fed to the young Gulls,

but where they have nested near fresh, instead of salt, water many

insects gleaned from the fields are eaten.

“It was in the Gulls’ nesting season that the plunderers chose to go to

their island haunts, steal the eggs, and kill the parent birds, whose

devotion, like that of the White Heron, left the birds at the mercy of

the plume hunters.

“At the end of summer the young, wearing their speckled suits, are able

to join the old in flocks, and it is then that they scatter along the

coast, some going from the northern borders down to the Great Lakes. In

and about New York City they are one of the features of the winter

scenery; they fly to and fro under the arches of the great bridge, and

follow the ships the entire length of the harbour and out to sea. At

night they bed down so close together that in places they make a

continuous coverlid of feathers on the waters of the reservoirs and in

the sheltered coves of the Hudson. From the banks of Riverside Park, any

autumn or winter afternoon, so long as the channel is free from ice,

they may be seen flying about as fearless as a flock of domestic

Pigeons.”

“Here on our beach they are scary enough,” said Tommy. “Why, the other

day I tried every way to creep up close to some of them, but I never

could; they were always up and off, sometimes without saying a word, and

sometimes screeching, ‘Yuka-yuka-yuka,’ enough to frighten any one. Pop

says that, way back when he was a boy, and there weren’t any laws to

prevent shooting anything except the game-birds out of season, that

these birds were just as scary, so that the best shots used to go down

on the bar and try to hit a Gull, not to eat, but for the sake of being

called a good shot, because Gulls were harder to get than old leader

Crows.”

“That is the very reason why Gulls alongshore are afraid now. For so

many years they have served as targets for Duck hunters, and people who

did not realize what they were destroying, that fear has become an

instinct. Now in the nesting-haunts, where they are protected, they are

gradually becoming more and more tame. About the harbours of cities and

parks, where shooting has never been allowed for other reasons than bird

protection, they fly about unconcernedly and exhibit little alarm.”

“Are Gulls any real use, except that they are nice to look at and watch

fly?” asked Dave, presently, as Bobbie’s bird was being passed from desk

to desk.

“Yes, the Harbour Gulls are useful in many ways, and would be more so if

man would protect them fully everywhere, as they do in some countries

and in some of the western parts of our own country; but, in general,

they have been so persistently hunted that they shun the land-bound

fresh water, where they would help the farmers by feeding on large

insects, and prefer the freedom of the open water.”

“The true Gull of the sea, the spirit of the salt, is a sort of

feathered bell-buoy, and thus is of use to the sailors, as there

is ample testimony to prove.

“In summer, in thick weather, the appearance of Gulls and Terns

in numbers, or the sound of their clamorous voices, gives

warning to the mariner that he is near the rocks on which they

breed. Shore fishermen, enshrouded in fog, can tell the

direction of the islands on which the birds live by watching

their undeviating flight homeward with food for their young. The

keen senses of sea-birds enable them to head direct for their

nests, even in dense mist.

“Navigators approaching their home ports during the seasons of

bird migration welcome the appearance of familiar birds from the

land. . . .

“Sea-birds must be reckoned among the chief agencies which have

made many rocky or sandy islands fit for human habitation. The

service performed by birds in fertilizing, soil-building, and

seed-sowing on many barren islands entitles our feathered

friends to the gratitude of many a shipwrecked sailor, who must

else have lost his life on barren, storm-beaten shores.”

—E. H. Forbush.

“Is mine a good grown-up Gull?” asked Bobbie, who had been waiting

anxiously for its safe return to his hands, “because grandpa says if it

is, he’ll take it over to town, and get it stuffed, and fixed up on a

perch, to remember Oyster Day by; but I’ll bury it if you’d rather I

would.”

“It is a fully grown bird, Bobbie,” said Gray Lady, “and it is wearing

its winter dress. In summer the head and neck that are now streaked with

gray would be a dazzling white, and as accident killed it, and wind and

tide gave it to you, there is no reason why you may not keep it with a

clear conscience.”

XVII

THE BIRDS’ CHRISTMAS TREE

_Preparation_

The Christmas sale was over. It had been held in the play and work rooms

the Saturday before Christmas, and was a great success. The dressed

dolls, iron-holders, aprons, bird-houses, wooden spoons, racks for

clothes, and little knickknacks had been ranged on the work-table and

carpenter’s bench, and all the people of the neighbouring towns, as well

as from Fair Meadows village itself, had been asked to come and see.

When they came and saw, they stayed to buy.

The bird-houses proved the greatest novelty, and Tommy Todd and Dave,

their cheeks red with excitement, were kept busy taking orders for more,

to be finished by May or June, one customer said. She, however, was very

much amused when Tommy told her that if she expected to have birds in

the house (it was a box for Tree Swallows) the first season, she must

have the house in place before April, so that it might “be weathered a

little, and the birds find it when they first came, and not think it was

a trap put up to catch them.”

Gray Lady donated some delicious cake of Ann’s make, and hot chocolate,

and while the visitors enjoyed it, they asked many questions about the

bird class, the school at Foxes Corners, and the motives of the Kind

Hearts’ Club itself; for this name had been printed on the posters

advertising the sale.

The result that concerned the public good was that other men and women

resolved, even if they could not do it as thoroughly as Gray Lady, to

supply the teachers in their various districts with charts and books,

and before night settled down, Sarah Barnes, the treasurer of the Club,

was hugging tight in her arms a small iron box, with a lock and key,

wherein were fifty precious dollars, while orders that meant an equal

sum before the close of the school year were being copied from a rather

mussy paper into a blank-book, by Tommy Todd, the secretary, whose

usually clear upright letters were made crooked by his excitement.

The next question was, How should the money be spent? Each child was

asked to write his or her idea on a slip of paper and bring it to the

birds’ Christmas festival that was to be held, as seemed fitting, in

Birdland, the afternoon before Christmas, from two o’clock until four.

“Supposin’ it’s cold and snowy?—that’s a long time to be outdoors,”

said Eliza Clausen, as she walked home between Sarah and Ruth Barnes.

“It may not be out-of-doors,” said Sarah, looking very wise.

“Then it can’t be in Birdland, as Gray Lady said,” persisted Eliza, who,

though she was less critical since she had come under the older woman’s

influence, could not resist once in a while, “hoping for the worst,” as

Gray Lady called borrowing trouble.

“Yes; the party can be indoors, and yet in Birdland,” answered Sarah.

“Oh, you’re trying to catch me with a riddle or something.”

“If I am, I’ll tell you the answer at the birds’ Christmas tree next

Tuesday,” called Sarah, as she turned in at her own gate.

* * * * *

A two-inch fall of soft, clinging snow fell during the night before

Christmas eve, so that the next morning “everything looked as pretty as

the pictures on a calendar,” as Sarah Barnes said, when she arrived at

Gray Lady’s door, bright and early, to help decorate the birds’ tree.

Sarah did not enter the door, however, for she was joined on the porch

by Goldilocks and Ann, and together they walked through the garden to

Birdland.

Jacob Hughes had swept paths from the house in and out among the trees

through the garden. In Birdland he had used the single-horse snow-plough

to scrape a track running from the bird lunch-counter, about the edge of

the orchard, and then through the centre down to the old farm-house of

the Swallow Chimney, that stood in the lower corner facing on what had

been a cross-road, but was now a pretty grass-grown lane, with the snow

wreathing the bushes of black alder, with its red, glistening berries,

giving out a real Christmas feeling.

What had happened to the old house of the Swallow Chimney, where the

General’s father had lived, but which had now remained closed for so

many years, merely a storage-place for old furniture?

Smoke was coming from the great stone chimney, new shingles stained to

look old replaced the broken ones, new paint glistened on the

window-sashes, and the quaint old panes of glass, bearing the rainbow

tints of years, shone like mirrors. The front door was painted dark

green, and the spread-eagle knocker of brass was as bright as polishing

could make it; while around the deep front porch was a little fence of

cedar bushes in boxes, all garlanded with vines of coral, bittersweet

berries.

Goldilocks and Sarah went to the front door of the old house, while Ann

disappeared in the woodshed that joined the side porch and well-house.

The girls had not touched the knocker when the door flew open, and who

should stand there but Miss Rose Wilde, while beyond her, sitting by the

blazing log-fire in the long, low living-room, that had once been the

kitchen, was her mother, looking better and younger than she had for at

least ten years!

This was the secret. Gray Lady had repaired the old house and

established the faithful little teacher and her mother in it, so that

instead of mother and daughter only meeting once a week, or less often

in winter, and each having a good bit of heartache between, they had a

real home once more. What was also a bit of good luck, Mrs. Wilde’s

furniture, that had been stored away, was of the kind that seemed as if

it had been made for the old homestead and had never been anywhere else.

Once inside, Rose Wilde led them into the kitchen, where everything was

as neat as wax, and there, spread upon tables and half-covering the

floor, were the decorations for the birds’ Christmas tree.

Where was the tree itself? Where trees are the best and healthiest,

out-of-doors back of the house, a stout, young spruce, some twenty odd

feet high, growing in the orchard corner where no one had planted it,

the child of one of the spruces near the great house,—a half-wild tree,

sprung from the seed of a cone dropped by a Crossbill, perhaps, or left

by a squirrel who was making a winter store-house in the attic of the

farm-house.

The dainties for the tree were selected to suit all the various needs

and appetites of the winter birds likely to come to the orchard.

Gray Lady, Goldilocks, Rose Wilde, and Ann had strung quantities of

popcorn upon the chance of the Jays and Crows liking it. They had used

strong thread, but had only strung the corn by the very edge, so that it

would detach easily. There were lumps of suet, and marrow-bones,

securely bound with wire, ears of red and yellow corn, bunches of

unthreshed rye, wheat, and oats, little open boxes filled with

beechnuts, and various wild berries. Last of all, something that

Goldilocks had suggested, the heads of a couple of dozen sunflowers,

filled with the ripe, nutritious seeds, for she had noticed that all the

autumn the Goldfinches and various Sparrows had stayed about the beds

where the composite flowers like asters, marigolds, cornflowers,

zinnias, and sunflowers grew, and that also the wild sunflowers and

black-eyed Susans of waste fields were always surrounded by birds.

Jacob Hughes had his ladders all ready, but it was no small task to keep

him supplied with material, and there were many mishaps before all the

articles were in place, but to Goldilocks’ great joy, before Jacob had

fairly finished and taken the ladder away, a Chickadee and a Goldfinch

were both clinging to the same sunflower head, and a little Downy

Woodpecker had discovered one of the bones fastened to a branch and was

revelling, “up to his neck,” as Sarah expressed it, in the marrow.

Underneath the tree a place had been cleared for the gifts Gray Lady had

in store for what she called “the featherless two-legged birds of the

Kind Hearts’ Club.”

After they had rested a few minutes, and were thoroughly warmed, Gray

Lady, Rose Wilde, Goldilocks, and Sarah Barnes set out for a stroll

through the orchard, and the lane that ran back of it, up to the

farm-barns, to see what feathered guests were in the neighbourhood, the

walk taking them past a great pile of unhewn wood and a tent-shaped

brush-heap at the end of the lane.

Gray Lady used her opera-glasses, but the others trusted to their eyes

alone. These are the birds they saw and named easily: A flock of

Goldfinches in their dull winter coats feeding on weed seeds in the

lane; their old friends the Chickadees, three Blue Jays, two Flickers,

and several Downy Woodpeckers; Gray Lady thought possibly from their

markings, a whole Downy family,—Mr., Mrs., and four children.

As they neared the woodpile Goldilocks stopped, her hand on Gray Lady’s

sleeve and a finger raised in caution. “I do believe there is a Jenny

Wren that has not gone away or is lost, it is such a little bit of a

thing.”

As they stood looking, the little, neat, brown bird, about four inches

long, ran up and down among the logs like a mouse, then flew with a

little short flapping of the wings to the bush, where it clung to a

spray, bobbing to and fro, its comical bit of a tail pointing as close

to its head as possible. Then it appeared to pick something very

deliberately from the twigs and flew back again to the woodpile with a

sharp, warning note.

“That is not a belated House Wren,” said Gray Lady, “but the Winter

Wren, his cousin, who nests from the northern boundaries of the states

northward, but comes down in winter to visit us in southern New England

and travels as far south as Florida. A brave little fellow he is to

weather storms and cold here, and one of our three smallest birds, the

Golden-crowned Kinglet and the Humming-bird being the other two. In his

nesting-haunts he has a beautiful song; I have never heard it, but one

of his admirers who has says that it is ‘full of trills, runs, and grace

notes, a tinkling, rippling roundelay.’”

A few minutes later it was Sarah’s turn to exclaim, as she pointed to a

small, sparrow-like bird, perched on a giant stalk of seeded ragweed at

the side of the lane. “It’s a Chippy or else a Song Sparrow,” she said,

hesitatingly. “It’s bigger than a Chippy, and it’s got a spot on its

breast like the Song Sparrow, only it isn’t as big. O dear me! I don’t

think that I shall ever be sure of telling Sparrows apart,” she sighed.

“To be sure a bird _is_ a Sparrow is a step in the right direction,”

said Gray Lady. “I have known some one older than you call me to see a

big Sparrow which turned out to be a Wood Thrush. If you will remember

one thing, it will help you in placing the smaller birds. Look at a

bird’s beak; if it is thick, short, and cone-shaped, the bird is most

likely to be a Sparrow, for this family are all seed-eaters except in

the nesting season, while insect-eating birds, of all families, have

longer and more slender bills.

[Illustration: TREE-SPARROW]

“As for this little fellow, it is another of our winter visitors, the

_Tree-sparrow_ or _Winter Chippy_, and there is probably quite a flock

of his kin at this moment distributed over the wild fields below, doing

the work of seed-destroying that the farmers have neglected; for, aside

from the cheerful companionship of all these winter birds, the Sparrow

tribe is working for us all winter as Weed Warriors,[3] just as the

tree-trunk birds are Tree Trappers, the birds who take insects while on

the wing, Sky Sweepers, and the silent birds of prey, who sit in wait

for the field-mice and other vermin, Wise Watchers.

“Ah, it is my turn now to make discoveries,” said Gray Lady, as they

turned into the orchard at the end opposite the lunch-counter tree.

“Keep very quiet, and look at the mossy branch of that half-dead tree to

which some frozen apples still hang; what do you see, Goldilocks? Take

my glasses and look carefully before you answer.”

“Where?” said Goldilocks; “yes; I see. One is a little, fluffy, greenish

gray bird with a dirty white breast. Oh! he has a red stripe edged with

yellow on top of his head! He moves so quickly that I can’t seem to see

the whole of him with one look, though he is small. The other bird is a

little bigger, and not so fat; he has a yellow spot on his head, and a

brighter one over the tail, and a yellow spot on each side; he is

striped gray and black all over, except some white on his wings and

underneath. How he flits about, just like that bird that looked like a

red-and-black butterfly that we saw last summer that you said was a

Redstart.”

“You have very sharp eyes,” said her mother, “for you saw at once the

identifying marks of two birds that were new to you. The merry fellow of

the flaming crown is the Golden-crowned Kinglet, another sturdy winter

visitor, who breeds in the North, and finds our climate quite warm

enough for him if the food holds out; for he is a tree trapper, giving

his attention, like the Chickadee, to the smaller branches and twigs too

slender to bear the weight of the heavier tree-trunk birds.

“His companion is the Myrtle or Yellow-rumped Warbler, a hardy cousin of

the Redstart and Summer Yellowbird that Sarah, perhaps, does not yet

know by name, though she has doubtless seen them. When you have once

seen the male bird, you will never forget him, because of the four

yellow spots. These warblers are great insect eaters, but lacking these,

they will eat berries, the bayberries being their favourite, and I

believe that we have to thank the bayberry bushes, in the rocky hill

pastures hereabouts, for the numbers of the Myrtle Warblers that stay

all winter, myrtle being a common title for the bay, giving them their

name.”

[Illustration: F. M. Chapman, Photo. SHELTER FOR BIRD FOOD]

At the garden end of Birdland, just inside the rustic gate, a flock of

Juncoes or Gray Snowbirds were feeding, plump, cheerful, and contented,

and giving vent to their satisfaction in their pleasant “tchip, tchip,

tchip” call. Those who only know one winter bird know the Junco, for he

belongs to city parks, village yards, and remote farms alike, anywhere

that a frugal meal of grain or weed seeds may be found, with a piazza

vine or brush-heap or haystack to creep into for shelter. His flesh-pink

bill, slate-coloured coat, and neat white vest, together with the _two

conspicuous white tail-feathers_, tell his name to any one who wishes to

know it.

The Junco is an autumn and winter visitor only, being away from May

until late September, as he nests northward from New York and

Connecticut. When the flocks first return, you will be puzzled by many

birds of the shape and build of Juncoes, but who are wearing more or

less striped clothes; these are the young of the year.

“Five new birds in one morning! I wish Tommy had been here,” said Sarah;

“but perhaps he knows them already; Tommy knows a lot you can’t see

because it’s down so deep.”

“You must find us a new bird, too, before we go in to lunch, Miss

Wilde,” said Goldilocks.

“I have been looking at, not one, but a dozen, while you have been

watching the Kinglet and Myrtle Warbler. Look over the gate-arch across

toward the house. Do you see something moving among the bunches of ripe

spruce cones?”

“I see birds moving, but I want to go nearer.” So the party managed, by

walking quietly, to reach the trees where the birds were feeding without

disturbing them in the least.

“There are two kinds of birds up there,” said Sarah, presently, for it

was her turn to use the opera-glasses. “They are both rather red. One is

darker than the other and has no white on him. The other is lighter red

and has some white on the wings and tail. Why, Gray Lady! their beaks

are out of joint at the end and don’t shut tight. I wonder what can have

happened to the poor things. I thought at first they might be wild

parrots.”

Gray Lady and Miss Wilde both laughed, Sarah’s concern for the birds was

so real.

“You are right about the bills not closing at the tip, but it is not

owing to an accident. Nature developed this bill so that the bird, who

is a lover of evergreen forests, might be able to wrench open the cones,

the only winter food that is oftentimes to be found.

“The bird belongs to the Finch and Sparrow family, though you would

never guess it, and is called the ‘Crossbill.’ The plain red one is the

Red-winged Crossbill, and the lighter-coloured one, with white markings,

the White-winged Crossbill. Both birds nest north of New England, but

travel about the country in little flocks, sometimes going as far south

as Virginia and the Gulf States.”

“Listen, I think I can hear the crackling as they tear the scales from

the cones,” said Goldilocks.

“Yes, and you can see those that they have dropped lying on the fresh

snow under the trees,” added Sarah.

At that moment an old-fashioned dinner-bell sounded from the direction

of the farm-house in the orchard. It was Mrs. Wilde letting them know

that luncheon was ready, for Gray Lady, Goldilocks, and Sarah were to

lunch at “Swallow Chimney,” as Goldilocks had christened the restored

home, by way of a house-warming.

As they left, the Crossbills, who had been climbing up and down, with

all the adroitness of the Chickadees or the Upside-down birds

themselves, suddenly took to wing, giving short, metallic-sounding

cries, flew rapidly over the orchard, to alight—where do you suppose?

On the birds’ Christmas tree. Here, after some inspection, they began to

tear at the popcorn, their twisted beaks doing the work so well that

they seemed fashioned for that purpose alone.

“Well,” said Goldilocks, her hands clasped in amazement, as they reached

the farm-house, and saw what had happened, “I never knew anything _quite

so quick_ to happen outside of a story-book!”

-----

[3] See _Citizen Bird_.

XVIII

HOW THEY SPENT THEIR MONEY

At two o’clock a procession of the pupils of Foxes Corners school filed

through the hall at “the General’s,” wondering what new surprise was in

store. The big boys, who would not begin school until the mid-winter

term, had come under the strong persuasion of Tommy and Dave. They

looked rather uneasy, however, as if they were not quite sure whether

the performances that the younger boys considered “bully” might not be

undignified for men of their age.

As the children went through the garden, Jim Crow lurched out of a bush

and walked along after them with an air of great importance, as if he

were the master of ceremonies. Larry, the Starling, was not particularly

fond of cold weather, and kept inside the shelter of the south porch,

making little excursions here and there, prompted by curiosity, and the

desire to use his wings, which were now quite strong, as food was to be

had from the dish that he and Jim shared, merely for the eating.

The lunch-counter was well patronized that afternoon, for, in addition

to the birds that had been in the vicinity during the morning, several

Bluebirds came, together with three Robins, who simply gorged themselves

upon some dried currants that Goldilocks had put out as an extra dainty.

Gray Lady was trying experiments with all sorts of odds and ends at the

lunch-counter, that she might see exactly what sort of food was the most

acceptable, and she was very much surprised to find that though wild

birds, like human beings, can adapt themselves to circumstances, a great

number have such a craving for animal food that it explained why Crows,

Jays, and some others become nest-robbers in the midst of summer plenty.

After they had called upon Miss Wilde at Swallow Chimney, where Eliza

Clausen discovered the meaning of Sarah Barnes’ mysterious remarks about

the party being held in the orchard, and yet being indoors, they went to

see the birds’ Christmas tree.

Since morning many things had been added to it that were not intended

for birds. Bundles, strange of shape, wrapped in green tissue-paper tied

up with red ribbon and little sprigs of southern holly, hung to the

lower branches, while Jacob, dressed as Father Christmas, stood by armed

with a hooked stick, with which he loosened the bundles and dropped them

into the waiting hands.

As it was impossible to tell from the shape of the parcels what they

contained, there was a good deal of pinching and squeezing done, but

beyond the feeling of sharp corners that might belong to either books or

boxes, nothing could be discovered.

“It is too cold for you to stand out here to open your parcels,” said

Gray Lady. “Suppose you take them in the living-room at the cottage, and

while the girls open theirs you boys come for a little walk with me, for

I have some work planned particularly for the boys of the Kind Hearts’

Club.

“Oh, do not look worried, I shall not keep you more than half an hour,”

she said, as she saw the boys were quite as curious about untying their

parcels as the girls.

So, following her lead, they trudged off up the lane, past the barn and

woodpile, to where the brush on either side narrowed it to a mere path.

Then, where another lane crossed it, the way grew broader again, and

while one side was screened by woods, from the other you could look out

upon a stretch of waste meadows and fallow fields.

There was only enough snow to crunch underfoot, and as Gray Lady walked

ahead, a sprig of holly fastened at the neck of her gray chinchilla

collar, and another in the close fitting hat of the same fur, her arms

buried to the elbows in a great muff, her eyes sparkling with pleasure,

and a rosy spot on each cheek made by the keen air, the boys cast many

glances of genuine admiration at her. The big boys, especially, felt

that she understood the situation exactly, by taking them to walk

without the girls, giving them her confidence, and planning something

for them to do that would be different from girls’ work, or, at least,

apart from it.

“Perhaps some of the others have told you,” Gray Lady said to the big

boys as they walked, “that I am very anxious not only to feed the small

tree birds, that they may stay with us in winter, but to try and help

the Grouse and Quail, so that, instead of those that have escaped the

dangers of the hunting season being driven out by hunger and cold, they

shall live on and increase, and become again the friends to the farmers

that they were in the old days.

“You big boys all know how much complaint there is of all kinds of new

bugs and worms and blights that discourage the farmers and leave but

little profit in their crops? As you learn to watch wild birds and their

habits, and realize the way in which they work for their living the year

round, you will see that it is largely the lack of these old residents,

these birds who were here before man came, that allows all the

new-fangled bugs to gain such headway.

“Now, while it is quite easy for all of us to have some sort of a

lunch-counter, either on a window-ledge, tree-trunk, or shed

roof,—anywhere, in short, where cats will not venture,—feeding the

larger game-birds is not such a simple matter, for until they thoroughly

understand our motives, they will not come to us; we must take food to

them.

“Birds that are hunted everywhere, for at least two months in a year,

cannot be expected the day after the season closes to come boldly to our

houses for food, as if they could consult a calendar, and say to one

another, ‘To-day is December first, we may go and take a walk in the

open road in safety.’

“Neither would they be safe, for there are always, I am sorry to say,

cowards in every township who will set snares, and get by stealth what

they dare not take openly. And, of the two, I think the snare a greater

danger to the poor birds than the gun.”

“The trouble with feeding game-birds away from houses would be that,

even if you knew their runs, and I think I know some pretty well, the

feed would most likely blow away or be snowed under unless they ate it

right away,” said Jack Todd, Tommy’s second eldest brother.

“Yes, that is one of the difficulties, but I think an idea that I have

borrowed, and am trying now for myself, may partly solve the trouble.

Look ahead of you, close to the rail fence. What do you see? No; don’t

rush to the fence and trample the snow; keep on the lane side.”

“It’s some sort of a tent,” said Tommy; “I thought at first it was just

a corn-stack with snow on it.”

“No; it isn’t a tent,” said Everett Judd, going closer; “it’s only bean

poles stacked with the vines left hanging, two rows of them, so’s the

snow won’t all drift in at one spot.”

“And what else?” asked Gray Lady. “Don’t you see cracked corn and mill

sweepings scattered in between the poles? This is a feeding-station for

our friends, the game-birds, if we can only make them understand that it

is not a form of trap and does not hold a snare in disguise.”

Jack Todd, who had gone close to the tepee on one side, stepping on

stones that he might avoid tracking the snow, and was examining the

ground intently, suddenly cried out, “There _have_ been mill sweepings

here, because I can see some dust, but the grain is all gone, and I

guess—no; I’m _sure_—there have been Grouse about, and they have fed

here since snow fell, for there are tracks coming out from under the

fence and going back the same way!”

“But how can you tell that they belong to Grouse?” asked Gray Lady,

coming close to look at the prints and thinking in her excitement they

might have been made by chickens.

“No, they are real Grouse tracks, for they’ve got their spiked

snow-shoes on, and here’s the marks of the prickers!” And Jack pointed

to the footprints of the brushed claws in triumph.

“This proves two points,” said Gray Lady, “that there are Grouse in the

neighbourhood, and that they will take food if it is offered to them in

the right way. I should like to put up a dozen of these

feeding-stations, if you boys will help; you know the woods and

brush-lots better than I do now, and you can select the places that will

be suitable for these shelters and find what material there is close at

hand of which they can be built.

“When this is done, I shall again have to depend upon you for keeping

them supplied with food. If we find that the grain is eaten, I think

that it should be renewed three times a week, so if six of you boys will

volunteer for the service, two can go together, and it will only make

one trip a week for each pair. If the snow is deep, you might possibly

arrange to fit some boxes to your sleds to hold food, or, if the

shelters are in rough ground, a bag fastened to the shoulders like a

pedler’s pack might work well; for, in doing this work on a large scale,

merely a pocketful of food will not suffice.”

“I will help,” said Jack Todd, after thinking a moment. “Me, too,” said

Everett, and Irving Todd, together; then of course the others followed,

Dave and Tommy anxious lest they should be left out, while Bobby and

little Jared Hill, though too small to undertake to care for a station

alone, were acceptable as companions for the big boys.

“We have the rest of this week, and all of next for a holiday,” said

Jack Todd, “so suppose we take a tramp about the hill country on each

side of the river valley to Centreville, that’s about five miles, and

fetch axes with us. I know most of the people on the way, and, if we put

the shelters somewhere near houses, we could distribute the food along,

and they would let us keep it in one of the outbuildings, so that it

would be handy in stormy weather. I’m pretty sure we can collect stuff

enough as we go for the shelters. My uncle, who lives at Hilltop Farm,

would give me corn-stacks for three or four. There’s a heap of

slab-sides (the outside strip, with the bark, when a log is to be sawn

into boards) left to go to pieces up by where the sawmill was last year;

they will make fine wigwams, and there are plenty of cedars and birches,

with brushy tops, for the rest. Then perhaps the folks along the line

might be interested and rig a few up on their own account.”

“Thank you, Jack,” said Gray Lady, warmly; “you have caught the spirit

of the idea and improved it already, for if we are to do the game-birds

any real good, and establish the feeding plan permanently, the people

all ‘along the line,’ as you call it, must be interested until not only

Fair Meadows township, and the county, but all the counties in the

state, are linked together in the work of restoration.

“Meanwhile, though, of course, everything that is done regularly is

work, I really envy you boys some of the fun you will have in your

winter tramps; sometimes you will be able to skate nearly all the way

upon the river, and sometimes, if the snow is as deep as people are

predicting, you may be able to go on snow-shoes.”

“Only I don’t think any of the fellows hereabouts own a pair of

snow-shoes,” said Everett.

“Then they are the very things for Jacob to help you make if you come to

any of our Saturday meetings,” said Gray Lady. “Jacob was born in

Canada, and worked with fur trappers for several years, and though,

perhaps, he may not be able to make them as well as when he was a young

man, they would surely be better than nothing, and who knows but what

one of the many things that the Kind Hearts will organize may be a

Snow-shoe Club.”

Thus the big boys of Foxes Corner school found themselves interested and

pledged in Gray Lady’s work without a suspicion of the “playing baby” of

which they had such dread.

* * * * *

By the time Gray Lady and the boys returned to Swallow Chimney, the

girls had opened their bundles, and besides little work-boxes, each with

a silver thimble of the right size for the owner, and a pair of scissors

that would “cut clean and not haggle,” as Eliza Clausen expressed it,

there were books for all. Some were about birds, and others about

flowers, trees, butterflies, and the real life out-of-doors that is more

wonderful than any fairy-tale. Having disposed of their own presents,

with many little shrieks of delight, the girls stood by, waiting for the

boys to open their bundles. These were all long and flat, with a bunch

in the centre, as if two objects of different shapes were fastened

together.

Tommy succeeded in untying his first, skeining up the string so that he

might have it for the re-wrapping. A strong, well-made knife, with two

blades fell out, and under it was a hammer, a chisel, a half-inch auger,

and a medium-sized cross-cut saw. Seeing Tommy’s gifts made the others

pull open their packages hastily, with less regard for string and paper,

to find that they also had the coveted tools.

“Now,” said Gray Lady, “you boys will be independent of your fathers’

tools when you take a bird-house home to finish, or wish to do a little

bit of work for yourselves, as the girls will also be independent of

their mothers’ work-boxes and thimbles; because, if the grown-up people

are always having their tools borrowed or mislaid, they are apt to have

a sort of grudge against both the work and the workers.”

Some of the boys looked at each other rather sheepishly, and wondered

how Gray Lady knew that their fathers had said that “since the boys took

to carpentering there hadn’t been a hammer or nail to be found nor a saw

with the sign of an edge left on it.”

“By and by,” continued Gray Lady, “if you have the desire, you will all

have a chance to earn other tools, and also make boxes in which to keep

them.

“You may wonder why the Christmas tree bore no candy by way of fruit;

that was because part of the fun for this afternoon will be making

candy,—caramels, chocolate creams, nut taffy, and old-fashioned pulled

molasses rope-candy,—so that, besides the making and tasting, you will

all have something that you have made yourselves to give the people at

home to-morrow, or put in their stockings if they are hung up. See! here

are the boxes that Goldilocks has made to hold the candy!” There upon a

tray were two dozen square boxes covered with green-and-white paper, and

a row of red-paper hearts pasted across the top of each, with the words,

“The Kind Hearts wish you a Merry Christmas,” printed in red.

“Did you make all those boxes yourself, Goldilocks?” asked Sarah Barnes,

in amazement; “I don’t see how you could turn the corners so nice.”

“Not the boxes; you can buy them for very little at the factory. I

covered them and put the hearts on, but Mother did the printing. It is

easy enough if you take time. You see the two years that my feet

wouldn’t go, I learned to make my fingers work for both.”

“The fire and pans, sugar, molasses, and nuts are all ready, but, before

we become Miss Wilde’s guests and begin, for the candy-making and supper

belong to her party, we must hold a short business meeting of the Kind

Hearts’ Club, that we may decide how the Christmas money is to be

spent.”

Gray Lady then sat down at the end of the room with Mrs. Wilde, while

Goldilocks, the president, took her place at the head of the long table,

with the vice-president, Miss Wilde, close at hand to prompt. Sarah, the

treasurer, and Tommy, the secretary, were on opposite sides of the table

facing each other, and all the others sat up very straight, wearing

various expressions of importance that were quite amusing.

Goldilocks rapped on the table with her pencil, and said in a rather

shaky voice, blushing rosy red as she spoke, “The meeting will please

come to order and listen to the reading of the minutes of the last

meeting.”

There had been but one previous meeting, that to arrange for the

Christmas sale, and it had been informal, so that this was really the

president’s first appearance in the chair, and, as she spoke, she kept

her eyes fastened to the paper upon which Miss Wilde had written the

order to be followed.

“Secretary will please read the minutes of the last meeting,” she said,

after a pause.

The secretary looked around in a hunted sort of way, as if to find an

open door through which he could escape, and, seeing none, got rather

unsteadily upon his feet, opened the square blank-book that Gray Lady

had given him for his records, fumbled with the pages, and then said,

rather than read,—“We were all there. We all agreed to sell the things

we’ve been making so as to get some money to feed birds, and buy things;

and Gray Lady said we could do it in her house; the Saturday before

Christmas was duly appointed, and Dave was to get the bills, to tell

folks it was going to be printed down at the Chronicle Office, because

it is his uncle runs it, and Gray Lady promised to give cakes and

chocolate, in case folks were hungry.

“Respectfully submitted,

“Thomas Todd, Jr., Secretary, Amen!”

* * * * *

Gray Lady did not dare look at Miss Wilde during the reading of this

report, but the children took it in perfect earnestness, and Goldilocks,

having put the report to vote, as she had been told, proceeded to the

next item before her and called, “Report of the secretary.”

Again Tommy fumbled, and, after looking in every page of the book but

the ones that were written upon, suddenly burst forth,—“We had it, and

we sold everything, besides some things we haven’t made yet. The people

ate all there was, and took the other things home. It was a big cinch!

Sarah Barnes has got the money in a box, and her father’s put it in the

clock-case, except some of it that’s in dimes and nickels, and they’re

in a bag in the dresser with the rye meal so’s no one’ll know. Gray Lady

said that to-day we must each bring a paper, with written on it the way

we wanted the money spent. We have. It was hard to write because some

things we would like to have wouldn’t be nice to everybody all around,

and that’s what it means to have a Kind Heart, grandma says.

“Yours truly,

“T. Todd.”

* * * * *

Action having been taken upon this, and the report accepted without a

dissenting voice, the treasurer was called upon, and Sarah arose.

“The result of the sale of the Kind Hearts’ Club, which was held in the

spacious residence of Mrs. Gray Lady Wentworth on Saturday, December

18th, was very gratifying to all concerned, and the proceeds, fifty

dollars, are now in the hands of the treasurer awaiting the orders of

this august body.

“Respectfully reported by

“Sarah Barnes.”

* * * * *

“How did you get yours together so slick and short, and full of nice

words?” whispered Tommy to Sarah, across the table, his usual admiration

for her now tinged with new respect.

“I didn’t,” she signalled back, not speaking audibly, but making the

words with her lips. “I just told grandma how much money we had, and she

worded it; they always talked reports that way at the missionary

meetings and sewing societies when she was a girl, and she thinks folks

are getting to be real slack talkers now.”

“A dis—cussion is now in order as to the spending of the money. Will

Mr. Todd collect the papers and the vice-president kindly read them?”

said Goldilocks, after looking at her paper again. And as Tommy passed a

little box for the slips, Gray Lady came from the corner, so eager was

she to hear what the children had in view.

Rose Wilde opened the papers, and the ideas on the first few, though

good, presented nothing original: food for birds; books for the school;

bird charts for the Bridgeton Hospital. Sarah’s paper suggested

sleigh-rides and charts for the children in the Bridgeton Orphan Asylum,

“because they don’t know any birds but English Sparrows.”

Tommy’s paper read:—“To fix the spring that used to come down Sugar

Loaf Hill into a trough, before Bill Evans got mad with the Selectmen,

and blocked it from coming through his pasture. There’s no water for

drivers along the road above the Centre until you get to Beaver Brook,

and that’s four miles, unless they get it from our well, which isn’t

handy. My father could fix a big stone trough, ’cause he’s a mason, and

birds and dogs and horses could drink. Birds need water to mix mud for

their nests, too, especially Robins and Wood Thrushes. What is wanting,

is to pipe the spring across Evans’ field,—his widow’d be pleased to

have us; it’s her land. It’s two hundred feet, father says.”

“That is a very good, practical idea, Tommy,” said Gray Lady, earnestly;

“we must consider this.”

Rose Wilde had now come to the last paper without discovering anything

else of special novelty; this was written in little Clary’s stiff

letters, and filled a whole sheet of paper.

“It isn’t for birds, it’s a blanket for Joel Hanks, the mail-man’s

horse. It’s blind in one eye, and it’s a kind horse, and knows where all

the boxes are. It’s got a cough now. Mr. Hanks was going to buy a new

one (a blanket), and get shingles on that end of the barn where the

horse stands, so’s the snow won’t drift in, but his wife got sick last

summer, and had doctors and nurses, and that costs more money than a new

horse, and a whole barn, my mother says. Mother says it isn’t Joel’s

fault he’s poor; he isn’t slack, only some folks are marked for trouble.

Last summer, lightning struck his haystack, and burned it and only his

cornstalks were left. His horse is thin, too. Cornstalks aren’t filling

for uphill work, my father says, and the mail-route is all either up or

down, and in winter downhill is slippery, and just as bad. A horse is a

lovely animal, and useful; I would like us to help this horse. He isn’t

a bird, to be sure, but birds have feathers, and don’t have to drag a

wagon uphill, against the wind, with bent axles. It will take three

bundles of shingles for that barn-end and three lights of window-glass.”

There was silence for a moment, and Miss Wilde, looking at Gray Lady,

while she waited for her to speak, saw tears in her eyes.

“Tommy’s idea about the fountain is excellent, and I think we can build

it before spring, but the blind old horse and his patient master cannot

wait, and they both serve us, each and all, in fair weather and foul.

“How is it, children? Shall we set aside ten dollars for the bird food

for the winter, and then buy Mr. Hanks a ton of good hay, a

horse-blanket, the three bundles of shingles, and the window-glass? And

do you think that you big boys could put on the shingles if Jacob Hughes

helped you?”

“You can just bet we will!” cried Jack Todd, and the others nodded

approval.

This matter also was put to vote, and then a committee appointed,

consisting of Miss Wilde and Jack Todd, to purchase blanket, hay, etc.,

while to Clary fell the inexpressible bliss of stopping at Mr. Hanks’ on

her way home, telling him the news, and taking a blanket, warm but not

new, that Gray Lady loaned until the new one could be had.

“Now for the candy!” shouted Tommy, whose spirits could keep in no

longer.

“The meeting isn’t adjourned, yet,” said Goldilocks, reprovingly,

clutching her paper and pounding on the table. “A motion is in order.”

“I move that we adjourn,” said Miss Wilde.

“Now somebody say, ‘I second it,’” insisted Goldilocks.

“I second it,” came a chorus. And any further remarks were lost in a

shout that arose at the sight of Jim Crow, climbing along a shelf of the

kitchen dresser, with one of the new pairs of scissors in his beak, that

he had managed to take unobserved from nobody-knew-whose work-basket.

XIX

BEHIND THE BARS

_Mockingbird, Cardinal, Indigo-bird, and Nonpareil_

One gray Saturday in January, when the wind rushed through the trees,

making the frozen branches clash with the sound of metal rather than

wood, and it was too cold to snow, Tommy Todd came to the kitchen door

at “the General’s” carrying a large and unwieldy bundle carefully wrapt

in an old quilt.

The door was opened by Matilda, the old coloured woman, who had been

“the General’s” cook in her youth, staying on as caretaker during the

years when the house had been closed. “What you got dere, sonny? Sumpin’

live, ’cause I kin hear hit scratchin’. Don’t say yer bringin’ in a trap

o’ rats, ’cause if dere’s anythink I mislike ’ticular, it is dem.”

“No, mammy; it isn’t rats, it’s a bird,” said Tommy, beginning to unwind

the quilt which covered a long cage made of wood and stout wires. When

he had succeeded in freeing it from the cover, which, being ragged,

caught on the wires, he lifted the cage to the kitchen table, where the

light came full upon it. There, hopping nervously to and fro between the

perches, was a gray bird about the size of a Robin. Its wings and tail

had a browner wash than the rest of its back, while some of its

tail-feathers and its underparts were white, though now soiled and

rather ragged from chafing against the bars. As it moved about, it

whisked its tail to and fro, in very much the same way as our Catbirds

and Brown Thrashers.

Matilda adjusted her big spectacles, grumbling as she did so, “Doan you

know, chile, dat Missy doan like birds to be shet up in cages, and be

prisoners, and sole away from home no mor’n de General would ’low folks

to be shet from liberty an’ traded away? I ’spect she’ll be powerful mad

when she sees dis yere. Whar yeh done git hit?” Then, as she drew near

the cage and saw the bird plainly, which for a moment stopped its

fluttering, she cried, “For de love ob Heaven, honey! it’s a Mocker, and

my ole eyes ain’t seen one since de ole cabin hit burn down, and we was

all scattered out’en, and left Lou’siana for to git Norf!

“My! but what birds dem Mockers were. I kin just year ’em now.” And

Matilda seated herself by the table, pushed back her glasses, and closed

her eyes.

“Winter wa’n’t well ober ’fore dey began to sing up, and come peepin’

around de cabins and in de road bushes lookin’ fer a nest-place.

Sometimes dey put it in de thick bush ober top de swamp, but more times

dey put it close in de rose vines, like as if dey t’ought snakes

wouldn’t likely git ’em dere, ’cause snakes is as set to git Mockers as

de ole one in de garden ob Eden was bound ter git Ebe.

“Dat nest, hit was kinder throwed together ob sticks, but de beddin’ in

hit was good an soft, for de Mockers knew mighty well whar ter find ole

cotton fluff to make a linin’. An’, while all this was doin’, how dey

did sing! Day wasn’t long ’nough fer him, ’cause ’long towards noon his

froat hit git dry and he’d go way down de orange grove an’ rest him jest

a li’l bit, and den come out again an’ git nearer and nearer to de

cabin, an’ when de sun hit role away to bed an’ de moon-up come, he’d

git from de rose vine to de roof, an’ den up to de chimley edge an’ sing

straight down at yer. Laws, honey, yer couldn’t never tell in daylight

what birds was singin’, de real ones or him a-mockin’ ob dem. De Red

Bird with de topknot, de Blue Jay, de li’l Wren wif de sassy tail, de

Hangnest (Oriole), or de Blue Sparrow might all be singin’, for all I

know’d, or hit might be only he a-mockin’ of ’em better than dey knew

how demselves.

“But when hit come night, and eb’ry one was home at de quarters, an’

some was singin’, an’ some playin’ de banjo, an’ de smell from de orange

groves risin’ up powerful on de wind, and sun-down t’ree four hours

gone, den when we heard all dem birds a-singin’, we knew it was de

Mocker, an’ sometimes he wouldn’t stop all the night until de light hit

slip right from silber to gold, an’ den copper, an’ ’twas sun-up again;

an’ in dose days most eb’ry one had a Mocker in a cage. But here I be

runnin’ on ’bout de times when de Lord he let folks an’ wild birds both

be bought an’ sold. Tell me, honey, whar ye done git him? Shore he neber

was flyin’ round about up yere in de cold an’ snow—him what lubs de

sun-up ’way down Lou’siana way.”

“I didn’t put him in a cage, Aunt Tilda,” said Tommy, earnestly; “it is

this way. He belonged to old Ned that works of summers for my Uncle Eph

over at Bridgeton, and then goes home every year down South at

Christmas, to spend the cold weather. This year he has hurt his leg, and

is sick and can’t go, and has to stay in Bridgeton Hospital. So, as he

used to know ‘the General,’ and he’s heard that Gray Lady loves birds,

he told me to bring his Mocker over here, and ask her if she’d keep it

safe and feed it until real warm spring weather, and then hang the cage

outside, and open the door, and let it fly away if it would. ’Cause he

thinks somehow it would find the way home if it wants to.

“He fed it well, and cared for it, and never thought about its being

unhappy in a cage until he had to go to the hospital, and be shut in,

and couldn’t go home South, perhaps, any more. Then I guess he knew how

his Mocker might feel, too. I think Gray Lady will keep him, even though

it says on the Bird Law posters that _you mustn’t keep a wild bird dead

or alive or have its nest or eggs_. Because if Sheriff Blake arrested

her, he knows old Ned and Gray Lady could explain it all so’s she

wouldn’t be fined.”

“What is it that Gray Lady can explain so that she need not be fined?”

said a voice from the store-room on the other side of the entry way, and

“sheself” walked in; “sheself” being Matilda’s name for her mistress

when she wished to use a term that she considered more dignified than

the homely one of “Missy.”

Then Tommy repeated his explanation, while Matilda stood looking at the

Mockingbird and muttering to herself of the many happenings of her slave

days, happy as well as sad, that the sight of him recalled.

“Of course I will keep the Mockingbird until spring,” said Gray Lady,

“and then I will hang the cage in the porch, open the door, but still

keep it well supplied with food, so that he may come and go, and if his

heart leads him back towards his southern birthplace, be sure that he

will join the flock of some of his northern kindred and in their company

reach home.”

“Do we have any kind of Mockingbird up here?” asked Tommy, his eyes

opening in wonder.

“Not real brothers of the Mockingbird, though he has half a dozen in the

southwestern part of the country, but two first cousins, and half a

dozen second cousins. Let us take the Mocker up to the playroom and hang

his cage in the warm window by the chimney, where the sun will shine on

him whenever the clouds let it peep through. Then I will tell you all

who his cousins are, and about three other American birds that for many

years were caught and kept prisoners in cages and sold out of their

native land.”

* * * * *

The children were all gathered upstairs by the time Gray Lady arrived,

followed by Tommy, carrying the cage.

“I had a Robin in a cage, once, and a Catbird, and grandma and Aunt Mary

always have Canaries. Why is it against the law to keep wild birds in

cages? That Mockingbird doesn’t seem to mind it a bit; now that he’s

smoothed down his feathers, and has begun to eat, he acts real happy,”

said Eliza Clausen, after they had looked at the newcomer and heard the

story of his being sent to Gray Lady.

“There are two reasons why wild birds should never be kept in cages

except for really scientific study, or to help them when they are

exposed to cold, or are ill and maimed in some way. The first reason is

that when Nature placed birds in certain localities provided with the

best sorts of beaks, feet, etc., to make them able to earn their living,

it was done because there was work there for them to do that they could

perform better than anything else. They were a part of the Great Plan

for preventing insect life (which also has its uses) from increasing too

much and doing damage. This is the practical way of considering birds

for what the Wise Men call their ‘economic value.’ These birds may be

able to hold their own against the birds of prey, that in the beginning

were doubtless made to keep the smaller birds from becoming too numerous

and upsetting the balance of the Plan, but when man came in, and not

only destroyed them for some fancied damage to his crops, but took the

young from the nest, or trapped the old birds, and sold them into

captivity where they could no longer follow the creative law, to

‘increase and multiply,’ the danger became grave.

“The second reason, however, is one that our own kind hearts can

understand the best, and that is the misery of the bird born wild when

he feels himself a captive. If he outlives the first misery, and seems

to become resigned, he may become content in a way, but he can never

forget the liberty he has lost, nor can we, in any way, make up to him,

by mere food and creature-comforts, the ecstasy of the wild life. The

very fact that the healthful joy of flight and choice in mating is

denied him is enough.

“I did not realize this when I was a girl, and I also kept cage birds

like every one else; it was not because I was cruel, simply that I had

never thought of the matter any more than my friends, until one day,

being ill and shut in my room, like poor old Ned in the hospital, I

watched the fluttering of a Painted Bunting or Nonpareil that my father

had bought me.

“This bird is one of the southern Sparrows, in size no larger than a

Chippy. Its plumage is tropical in its beauty, deep blue head and neck,

red underparts, glistening green back, green-and-red wings, with a

reddish tail; in short, a glittering opal copied in feathers. Its cage

was roomy, and it had the best of food, and fresh water for bathing and

drinking, while the shelf in the window, on which it stood, was filled

with flowering plants, up through the branches of which it could look.

But, oh, the expression of that bird’s body! I watched its every motion;

the head thrown backward, searching in vain for a loophole of escape

between the bars, the quivering of its wings as the impulse for freedom,

and the company of its kind, swept over it! Sometimes, late in the

night, when I awoke and looked toward it, I could see that it was awake

and its wings trembling with the thought of dawn that it could not fly

to meet. Then I knew, even if it became cowed, and forgot its natural

instincts so far as to be dumbly content as a prisoner, that the real

life of the bird would be as dead as if a bullet had ended it, and

though it was late winter, February, I felt that I must give it liberty.

“I told my father, and he sympathized with me as usual, listened to my

story, and then, packing the cage safely, had it sent by special express

to a family friend, who was wintering in Florida, with the request that

she liberate the prisoner. For, as we could not get it to its winter

haunt in the tropics, this seemed next best, and it would soon meet the

flocks of its kin on the return trip.

“So the bird was freed, and once more felt the joy of being lifted on

his wings whither he would go, and whatever loneliness he may have

suffered after that, he had gained liberty, which is the right of the

least of God’s creatures.

“Of the four American birds that were most commonly caged, the

Mockingbird and Cardinal have always been the most popular, and this is

what some of the writers have said about taking them into captivity.

_The Mockingbird_

“The Mockingbird ranges from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and

from middle Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, southward to

the Gulf of Mexico. Usually the bird-hunters take the young from

the nest as soon as they open their beaks for food. These are

sold in Southern cities by negro boys for from fifteen to

twenty-five cents apiece. . . . Thousands of Mockingbirds find

their way across the Atlantic.”—Henry Nehrling.

_The Cardinal_

“This is one of our most common cage-birds and is very generally

known, not only in North America, but even in Europe, numbers of

them having been carried over both to France and England, in

which last country they are called ‘Virginia

Nightingales.’”—Alexander Wilson.

_The Indigo-bird_

“The combination of musical ability, lovely plumage, and its

seed-eating qualities long since has made the Indigo Bunting in

danger of extermination, through the fact of its being

universally captured throughout the South and sold as a

cage-bird, both for home use and for export.”

_Painted Bunting or Nonpareil_

“This splendid, gay, and docile bird, known to Americans as the

Nonpareil (the unequalled), and to the French Louisianans as _le

pape_, inhabits the woods of the low countries of the Southern

states.

“For the sake of their song as well as beauty of plumage they

are commonly domesticated in the houses of the French

inhabitants of New Orleans and its vicinity. . . .

“They are commonly caught in trap-cages, to which they are

sometimes allured by a stuffed bird, which they descend to

attack; and they have been known to live in captivity for

upwards of ten years.”—Thomas Nuttall.

“The Mockingbird, as you see, has sombre gray plumage like his cousin,

the Catbird, that we all know so well that I think he should drop a name

that belies his wonderful musical ability, and be called the ‘Northern

Mockingbird.’ Even though the Mocker is caged, you can see the

resemblance, in the way in which he twitches his tail, and first throws

back his beak and then looks sideways, to our merry singer of the garden

who often makes us think that half a dozen birds are perching in the

drying-yard when he sits upon the top of a clothes-pole and lets his

imagination float away with his voice.

“The Brown Thrasher, too, with the long, curved beak, brown back, and

speckled breast, is also a first cousin and has the Mockingbird habit of

mounting high up when he sings and looking straight up at the sky; while

the Wrens, one and all, belong to this famous family group and come in,

we may say, as second cousins, and like the Mockingbird, aside from the

beauty of song, are very valuable insect eaters. The other three birds

have the conical beak that stamps them as members of the family of

Finches and Sparrows.

“Rich colour is the chief attribute that sets the Indigo Bunting apart

from its kin of the tribe of Sparrows and Finches.

“Blue that is decided in tone, and not a bluish gray, is one of the

rarest hues among the birds of temperate zones; for one may count the

really blue birds of the eastern United States upon the fingers of one

hand.

“This Bunting belongs to the tree-loving and tree-nesting part of his

tribe, in company with the Grosbeaks, and the brilliant yellow American

Goldfinch, whose black cap, wings, and tail-feathers only enhance his

beauty. The Sparrows, of sober stripes, nest on or near the ground, and

their plumage blends with brown grass, twigs, and the general

earth-colouring, illustrating very directly the theory of colour

protection, while the birds of brilliant plumage invariably keep more

closely to the trees.

“In size the Indigo Bunting ranks with the small Sparrows, coming in

grade between the Field- and the Song Sparrows, and being only slightly

larger than the Chippy. The female wears a modification of the Sparrow

garb, the upper parts being ashy brown without stripes, the underparts

grayish white, washed and very faintly streaked with dull brown, the

wings and tail-feathers having some darker edges and markings.

“When it comes to painting the plumage of the male in words, the task

becomes difficult; for to use simply the term indigo-blue is as

inadequate as to say that a bit of water that looks blue while in

shadow, is of the same colour when it ripples out into full sunlight and

catches a dozen reflections from foliage and sky. A merely technical

description would read: Front of head and chin rich indigo-blue, growing

lighter and greener on back and underparts; wings dusky brown, with blue

edges to coverts; tail-feathers also blue edged; bill and feet dark;

general shape rounded and canary-like, resembling the Goldfinch.

“The last of May one of these Buntings came to a low bush, outside my

window, and, after resting awhile, for the night before had been stormy,

dropped to the closely cut turf to feed upon the crumbs left where the

hounds had been munching their biscuits. I have never seen a more

beautiful specimen, and the contrast with the vivid grass seemed to

develop the colour of malachite that ran along one edge of the feathers,

shifting as the bird moved like the sheen of changeable silk.

“The nest, in no wise typical, is a loose and rather careless structure

of grass, twigs, horsehairs, roots, or bits of bark placed in a low,

scrubby tree or bush at no great distance from the ground, and the eggs

are a very pale blue or bluish white, and only three or four in number.

[Illustration: National Association of Audubon Societies INDIGO BUNTING

(Upper figure, Male; Lower figure, Female)]

Order—Passeres Family—Fringillidæ

Genus—Passerina Species—Cyanea

“Being a seed-eater, it is undoubtedly this Bunting’s love of warmth

that gives him so short a season with us: for he does not come to the

New England states until the first week in May, and, after the August

moult, when he dons the sober clothing of his mate, he begins to work

southward by the middle of September,—those from the most northerly

portions of the breeding range, which extends northward to Minnesota and

Nova Scotia, having passed by the tenth of October. He winters in

Central America and southward.

“Although of the insect-eating fraternity of the conical beak, the

Indigo Bunting consumes many noxious insects in the nesting season, when

the rapid growth of the young demands animal food, no matter to what

race they belong. Being an inhabitant of the overgrown edges of old

pastures, or the brushy fences of clearings and pent roads, he is in a

position where he can do a great deal of good. Mr. Forbush, in his

valuable book on _Useful Birds and Their Protection_, credits the Indigo

Bunting with being a consumer of the larvæ of the mischievous brown-tail

moth; but whatever service it may do as an insect destroyer, its service

the year through as a consumer of weed seeds, in common with the rest of

its tribe, is beyond dispute.

“The voice of the Indigo Bunting is pretty rather than impressive, and

varies much in individuals. It consists of a series of hurried,

canary-like notes repeated constantly and rising in key, but, to my

mind, never reaching the dignity of being called impressive song.

“Nuttall, one of the early American Wise Men, writes that, though

usually shy, the Indigo-bird, during the season, is more frequently seen

near habitations than in remote thickets: ‘Their favourite resort is the

garden, where, from the topmost branch of some tall tree that commands

the whole wide landscape, the male regularly pours out his lively chant

and continues it for a considerable length of time. Nor is this song

confined to the cool and animating dawn of morning, but it is renewed,

and still more vigorous, during the noonday heat of summer. This lively

strain is composed of a repetition of short notes, which, commencing

loud and rapid, and then slowly falling, descend almost to a whisper,

succeeded by a silence of almost half a minute, when the song is again

continued as before.

“‘In the village of Cambridge (Massachusetts), I have seen one of these

azure, almost celestial musicians, regularly chant to the inmates of a

tall dwelling-house from the summit of the chimney or the tall fork of

the lightning-rod. I have also heard a Canary repeat and imitate the low

lisping trill of the Indigo-bird, whose warble, indeed, often resembles

that of this species.’

“This combination of musical ability, lovely plumage, and its

seed-eating qualities long since has made the Indigo Bunting in danger

of extermination, through the fact of its being universally, throughout

the South, captured and sold as a cage-bird, both for home use and for

export. In that section the bird is called the ‘blue pop,’ a corruption

of ‘bleu pape,’ or ‘pope,’ of the French.

“The Cardinal, called ‘Grosbeak’ from the thickness and size of its

bill, is of course a very conspicuous bird wherever seen, and therefore

has always been a mark for the ‘arrow of death,’ as Mr. Allen, who knows

this bird in its native haunts, and its every mood, puts it. Some day

when you are older you will read his story of it as it lives in the deep

recesses of the evergreen woods, called _The Kentucky Cardinal_. For

though this bird is found nesting as far north as Central Park, New

York, and it has once or twice come to my garden here, and gone into

Massachusetts even, in the fall roving-time, we must always associate

him with a long outdoor season and sunny skies, as we do the

Mockingbird.

“If the Mocker suffered for his voice, the Cardinal was made a prisoner

for his song and gorgeous colour combined, and though, as is bird law in

such cases, the female is dull in colour, she has a very attractive song

also, even in confinement. But I hope that these prison days are over.

Whoever now confines the Cardinal is a law-breaker as well as a

heart-breaker, and yet, but ten years ago, every bird-store window was

aglow with the colour of the Cardinal’s mantle. I have here in the

scrap-book a charming story that you will like to hear, of a Cardinal in

Boston, made a temporary captive for its own preservation, and of its

release when the right time came.”