I SEEM to have wandered a long way from Eileen, but it was really she
who brought the birds to my mind.
I got up early the morning after our arrival, in order to show her the
way about, and because it is not one of my daily duties to be the first
down in the morning, I noticed all the more how the opening of the
doors and windows, to let in the day, is something much more than the
mere undoing of locks and latches. There is nothing to compare with the
inrush of sweet morning air that greets you on the threshold, as you
take your first look-out on a dew-sparkling garden, probably all alive
with the songs and chirps and twitters of the birds, and teeming with
the scents of things seen and unseen, each pouring forth its gratitude
in its own way for the ever-new miracle of the sun’s return.
This letting in of light and clean air, sunshine, song and scent, after
the inanimate darkness of the night, is so wonderfully symbolic that it
seems a mistake that it has come to be regarded as one of the inferior
domestic tasks, relegated to the minor members of the household.
And though I am not one of those exceptionally virtuous people who
habitually rise at six o’clock, waking every one else within earshot
and taking vain pride in their performances, whenever I chance to be
the first one to welcome the morning and let in the day, I feel there
are decided compensations for the wrench of getting out of bed minus a
cup of tea.
I also realize how easy it is, in the flush of exhilaration produced by
the early morning air, to make oneself a nuisance to all who are less
energetic. For some unaccountable reason, when I am down extra early,
I always want to bustle about, and do all sorts of rackety things that
never occur to me on the days when I do not put in an appearance till
breakfast is ready.
I had opened the windows in the living-room, and had set Eileen to
make the fire, and was seeing to things in the kitchen, when she
followed me with an excited squawk: “Oh, ma’am, there’s somebody has
lost their canary! It was on the window ledge just now, and it’s flown
into a tree. Have you got a bird-cage handy? I expect I could catch
it. There it is again”—pointing to a handsome yellow and black tit who
was pecking eagerly at some bacon rind I had just hung up outside the
window.