He sits on a branch of yon blossoming bush,
This madcap cousin of Robin and Thrush,
And sings without ceasing the whole morning long
Now wild, now tender, the wayward song
That flows from his soft, gray, fluttering throat.
But often he stops in his sweetest note,
And, shaking a flower from the blossoming bough,
Drawls out, “Mi-ew, mi-ou!”
[Illustration: Dr. T. S. Roberts, Photo. CATBIRD ON NEST]
XXV
BIRD AND ARBOUR DAY AT FOXES CORNERS
It was the first Friday of May, the day that was set apart for Arbour
and Bird Day in the schools. Gray Lady and Miss Wilde had thought of
having the celebration in Birdland, but for a good reason decided to
hold it in the schoolhouse.
The reason was this: One day after the schoolhouse had been put in
order,—for Gray Lady had persuaded the town fathers to have the walls
painted, and had then given a band of soft green burlap that covered the
wall just above the chair board, and made a fine background against
which pictures might be pinned and then changed at will,—little Clary
said with a sigh, “I wish we could have a bird party here in school some
day, so’s mother could _see_ how we learn about the birds; it would be
much realer than my telling her about it.”
So a very simple programme was arranged for the forenoon, and the
parents invited. It is a great mistake to hold celebrations that are too
long when it is spring, and the weather is so bright and the bird music
so fine that people can learn much more by being out-of-doors than in
poring over books.
The first part of the programme was under the charge of Jacob Hughes and
the older boys. It consisted in the planting of some strong young
sugar-maples to complete the row between the schoolhouse and the highway
that had been begun last autumn. The holes had been dug the day
previous, and Mr. Todd brought the trees from his grove in the hay-cart,
with plenty of earth about their roots, and after they were set straight
and true, the boys filled in the holes and tramped the earth down
firmly. After this the little boys brought water, four pails being
considered a sufficient drink for each tree.
Next, a dozen shrubs were planted in the eastern corner of the bit of
ground where it rolled up toward the brush-lot and the earth was deep
and good. They were varieties that would flower in May and June, before
the closing of school. Syringa, Weigela, Yellow Forsythia, Purple and
White Lilac, Snowballs, Spireas, Scarlet Flowering Quince, Strawberry
Shrub, and Deutzia. Between this shrubbery a little strip along the
north fence had been made into a long bed of about thirty feet, and the
girls had been asked to collect enough hardy plants from about the farm
gardens to fill it; for there is little use in planting bedding or
annual flowers in school yards, for these are later in starting and are
killed by early frost.
The girls had been very successful in their task, and a goodly
assortment of old-fashioned, hardy plants, that many a gardener would
envy, was the result: Iris of several shades, Peonies, Sweet Williams,
Larkspur, Foxgloves, Honesty, May Pinks, Lemon Lilies, Johnny-jumpers,
and several good roots of Cinnamon and Damask Roses were among the
collection, while Sarah Barnes’ grandmother sent a basket of the roots
of hardy button Chrysanthemums—pink, white, crimson, yellow, and
tawny—that she said would hold out from October to Thanksgiving if they
had “bushes between them and the north.” It was quite eleven o’clock
when, the planting over and the benches that the boys had made during
the winter set in place, the children, whose hands were washed under
very difficult conditions, gathered in the school.
But those parents who cared to come had meanwhile had a chance to go
into the little building, see the pictures, charts, and books on the
shelf behind the desk, and chat with Miss Wilde in a friendly, informal
way that was helpful to all concerned.
Goldilocks had been there all the morning, but when Gray Lady arrived
she brought with her a friend of “the General’s,” who was also a _Wise
Man_ in one of the chief agricultural colleges of the country, who had
promised to talk to the children. Gray Lady herself was to read them
some bird poetry, and Miss Wilde a little story of her own invention,
while as a finale the children themselves were to recite some verses
where ten familiar birds were represented each by a child who wore a cap
and shoulder cape, cleverly made of crêpe paper, that would give a clew,
at least, to the bird he or she represented.
These costumes had been made at the last Saturday meeting of the Kind
Hearts’ Club, in the playroom at “the General’s,” and had caused no
little fun, the idea of them having come from the caps in the mottoes at
that orchard party, in September, eight months before, when the children
first entered Birdland.
This is the poem that Gray Lady read. She had a voice that sang even in
speaking, and as Goldilocks often said, “When mother reads bird poetry
you don’t hear the words, but the birds themselves.”