I came to the woods in the dead of the year,
I saw the wing’d sprite thro’ the green-brier peeping:
“Darling of Winter, you’ve nothing to fear,
Though the branches are bare and the cold earth is sleeping!”
With a _dee, dee, dee_! the sprite seemed to say,
“I’m friends with the Maytime as well as December,
And I’ll meet you here on a fair-weather day;
Here, in the green-brier thicket,—remember!”
* * * * * *
I came to the woods in the spring of the year,
And I followed a voice that was most entreating:
_Phebe! Phebe!_ (and yet more near),
_Phebe! Phebe!_ it kept repeating!
I gave up the search, when, not far away,
I saw the wing’d sprite thro’ the green-brier peeping,
With a _Phebe! Phebe!_ that seemed to say,
“I told you so! and my promise I’m keeping.”
“You’ll know me again, when you meet me here,
Whether you come in December or Maytime:
I’ve a _dee, dee, dee!_ for the Winter’s ear,
And a _Phebe! Phebe!_ for Spring and Playtime!”
—Edith M. Thomas.
* * * * *
“When the Chickadee, who has persistently told us his name all winter,
and has assured us also in the darkest weather that it was
‘day-day-day,’ changes his call for the flute-like spring song of
‘Phewe-Phe-wee,’ clear as the wind blowing through a reed, we know that
at last the springtide has really turned. Chickadee occasionally gives
this note in autumn as if in anticipation, but it is really a love-song
of tender accent.
“Another spring sign comes to us in April, a sign to be seen. It comes
out of a clear sky and has all the mystery about it that still shrouds
the bird migrations. Spring and fall I see it, but it always fills me
with awe. This morning I stood out in the open meadow below the orchard,
looking at the sky to see if the clouds were going to break away, or if
it was to be a day of April showers. To the southwest a curious fine
black bar appeared high up against the clouds. Quickly it drew nearer,
and I saw what seemed to be a great letter that moved rapidly and yet
kept its shape printed on the sky,—a letter V coming toward me, point
on. In another minute the line proved to be made of separate marks, then
each mark developed a long neck and rapidly moving wings.”
Tommy Todd could stand it no longer; without giving the usual school
“hand up” warning he cried out, “The V was Wild Geese, with the wise old
gander that leads them for the point, and maybe if he wanted them to
shift and change their way, he gave a big honk, honk, like the
automobiles when they turn the sharp corner at the foot of our hill.
“We saw Wild Geese yesterday, grandpa and I; they were flying so low
over the mill-pond that grandpa said maybe they had been resting
somewhere. They do stop in fall sometimes, but in spring they generally
go right over in a big hurry. This time I could see their feathers
pretty well, black, gray, and light underneath, and a white mark around
the neck as if it was tied up for a sore throat. Grandpa says he shot
one once that was a yard long, but their necks looked all of that. How
far away do they have to go before they can stop to nest, please, Gray
Lady?”
“They nest only in our most northern states, and from there up through
British America; but as the country is settled they have to shift their
haunts very often, for you can well imagine that a colony, even in the
nesting season, would have but little peace if hunters could reach it
easily. These great birds on their journeys are one of the most
thrilling sights that everyday people can see, for they travel the
thousands of miles that separate their summer and winter homes, straight
through the night as well as the day, without chart or compass, but with
the same lack of fear and unfailing directness as a train would follow
the rails upon the road-bed.
“We hear and read stories of Nature that are inventions, and could not
have happened because they are not according to the plan of
creation,—so the people who tell these instead of being clever are
really very stupid,—but not one of these is as wonderful as the simple
truth, or as awe-inspiring as the flight of Wild Geese that goes on
before our sight year after year in the April sky, or that we know by
their cries and the rush of wings is passing overhead in the gloom of a
wild and stormy night.