what she had been hoping for all the time. The baby birds were both so
weak and small that they could do nothing at all for themselves but open
their mouths very wide and call, “Peep, peep! mother, dear, peep!”
Mother bird and father bird were busy all day getting them something to
eat. By and by they began to grow, and then they had soft feather clothes
to wear, which are the best clothes in the world for baby birds.
Mother bird said to them one day, “You are almost ready to learn to fly”;
and then they felt very large. That same day mother bird and father bird
flew away together to get something for dinner; and while they were gone
the little birds heard a very queer noise which seemed to come from a
pond near the tree. This is the way it sounded: “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!”
“Oh! what can it be?” said the sister bird. “I’ll peep over the side of
the nest and see,” said her brother. But when he put his head out he
could see nothing although he heard the sound very plainly: “Kerchunk!
Kerchunk!” Then he leaned out a little farther and a little farther, till
his head was dizzy. “Peep, peep! You’ll fall!” cried the sister bird;
and, sure enough, she had scarcely said it before he tumbled out of the
nest, down, down to the ground! He was not hurt, but, oh, how frightened
he was! “Peep, peep! mother, dear, peep!” he cried. “Peep!” cried the
sister bird up in the nest, but the mother and father were too far away
to hear their calls.
The brother bird hopped about on the ground and looked around him. He was
near the pond now, and the sound was very loud: “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!”
“Peep, peep, peep!” called the birdie, and in a moment up hopped a big
frog. This was an old school-teacher frog, and he had been teaching all
the little frogs to sing. “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!” said he. “How can I teach
my frogs to sing when you are making such a noise?”
“Peep, peep! I want my mamma,” said the baby bird. Then the frog saw how
young the birdie was, and he was very sorry for him. “Come with me,” he
said, “and I will teach you to sing.” But the baby bird cried louder than
ever at this, and a mother dove, who was singing her babies to sleep in a
neighbouring tree, flew down to see what could be the matter.
“I can’t begin to get my children to sleep in all this fuss,” she said to
the frog, but when she saw the little bird she was just as sorry as the
frog had been. “Poor, dear baby,” she cried. “I will fly right off and
find your mamma for you.” So she told her children to be good and quiet,
and then away she flew. Before long she met the father and mother, and
they all came back in a great hurry. Then they tried to get the baby bird
into the nest again.
“He is entirely too young to be out of the nest,” cried his mother, “and
he must get in again at once.” “Spread your wings and fly, as I do,” said
the father bird. So the baby bird spread his wings and tried to fly; but,
try as he would, he could not reach the nest in the tree.
“Put him into my school, and I will teach him to swim,” said the frog;
“that is better than flying, and a great deal easier to learn, I am
sure.” This was so kind of the frog that the mother bird thanked him;
but she said she had to be very careful with her children, and that she
was afraid the water might give the little bird a cold. While they were
talking, they heard somebody coming along, whistling the jolliest tune!
“Dear me! Dear me!” cried the birds. “There comes a boy!” “He’s apt to
have stones in his pocket,” said the frog. “He will carry my darling off
and put him in a cage! Oh, fly! fly!” begged the mother bird. But before
the baby bird even had time to say, “Peep!” the boy came in sight.
Then the father bird flew over the boy’s head and the mother bird down in
front of him. The frog croaked and the dove cooed, but none of them could
hide the little bird from him. “If you hurt him, I’ll peck your eyes
out!” cried the poor mother, who hardly knew what she was saying; but the
boy picked the little bird up, just as if he did not hear her. “Oh, what
shall I do?” cried the mother bird.
Then the boy looked at her and at the tree where the nest was. “Coo, coo,
coo! I think I know what he is going to do,” said the dove. “There’s no
telling,” croaked the frog; and they all watched and wondered, while the
boy put the bird in his pocket and began to climb the tree. He swung
himself from branch to branch, climbing higher all the time, until at
last he reached the pretty nest where the sister bird waited for her
mother to come home.
Mother bird and father bird flew to the top of the tree to watch the boy.
“Suppose he should take her, too,” said the mother bird. But what do you
think he did? Yes, indeed. He put the brother bird back in the nest, as
well as the mother bird could have done it herself.
“Thank you! Thank you!” sang the mother and father as the boy scrambled
down again. “Peep, peep! Thank you!” called the little birds from the
nest. “Coo, coo! I knew,” cried the dove. “Kerchunk! Kerchunk! I should
like to have him in my school,” said the frog, as he hopped away to his
pond.
THE STORY OF BLUE-WINGS
MARY STEWART
There was once an old apple-orchard. It was full of beautiful things. In
the spring the trees were covered with pink and white blossoms, while the
soft green grass was sprinkled with dandelions. In the autumn the fruit
was scarlet, and beneath the trees the grass, which had grown high and
feathery, waved in the wind.
But there was something else in the orchard which was more wonderful
than the grass or the dandelions, the blossoms or the fruit. Sometimes
early in the spring there was a sudden flash of blue wings above the
trees, then a bird’s song, so clear and sweet and joyous that it made us
think of blue skies and of dancing blue waves. It came from the owner of
those splendid blue wings, and we knew that the king of the orchard had
returned from his winter’s trip, the bluebird had come home.
High up in an old tree there was a little hole and there the bluebird
made his nest. From the outside the hole looked dark and hard, but inside
it was as soft and cosy as the prettiest nest in the world. It was lined
with bits of feathers and down and it was quite big, plenty big enough
for the bluebird and his wife. Her feathers were not as bright as his nor
her song as beautiful, but she could do something even more marvellous
than wearing bright feathers or singing joyous songs. She could lay eggs.
And so she laid five small, bluish eggs in that cosy home. Then she sat
on them, keeping them warm with her soft little body, while the father
bird flashed his splendid wings back and forth through the orchard,
bringing food to the little mother bird and singing his happy song,
happier than ever now that he could tell of those precious eggs.
At last the shells went “crack,” and five little baby birds opened their
big bills very wide and chirped for food. Then how busy their father and
mother were kept!
I have not time to tell you all that happened during the summer, when
the young ones learned to fly, learned too a few notes of that song which
makes us think of the sky and the sea. None of them were as beautiful as
their father, none of their songs were as perfect, but their mother told
them to have patience, to try hard to fly straight, and to sing clearly,
and then, perhaps, after their winter in the warm South, they would come
back to the orchard with wings that would flash, and with a song that
would be like the first joyous call of the spring time.
And so, when the first cold weather came, four of the young birds flew
away with their mother and father. But one was left behind! Poor little
bird, I do not know whether he had fallen from a tree or been hit by
a stone. I only know that one wing was broken, and he lay on the hard
ground, his blue feathers dull, his eyes dim.
There a little girl found him, and she lifted him tenderly and carried
him through the orchard to the white farm house beyond. She laid the poor
little creature in a big wooden cage, and fed him with bread crumbs
soaked in water until his eyes grew brighter and he tried to lift his
wings. But when he found that he could not, because one was broken, you
know, he gave a chirp of pain and huddled down forlornly on the floor of
the cage. But soon, with all this care, he grew strong again, even if he
could not fly, and he and the little girl had nice times together. The
door of the cage was always open and Blue-wings, that is the name the
child gave him, although his feathers were not so very blue, would hop
down to the table and around the room, always ending by lighting on the
little girl’s shoulder. He would eat from her hand, and sometimes he gave
little chirps which meant “thank you.”
He had never sung since the day when he had tried to raise his wings
and had dropped them in pain. Sometimes he dreamed of the orchard, of
flying swiftly through the trees and of singing joyous songs to greet
the sunshine. Then he would open his eyes and see the cosy kitchen and
his dear little girl friend, and he would hop down sadly and sit on her
shoulder, trying to forget his longings, trying to chirp cheerfully when
she gave him crumbs.
As the winter passed and the days grew warm and bright, Blue-wings found
himself dreaming of his old free life most of the time, and between the
dreams the longing to fly and sing was stronger than ever. One day the
window next his cage was left wide open and through it the soft south
wind brought the fragrance of the apple blossoms, and the whir and hum
of the little creatures who were busy greeting the spring time. Suddenly
Blue-wings felt as if he must fly and sing or his heart would break. And
then—was it a dream, he wondered—he lifted his wings and flew right out
of the window. Through the orchard he darted, above the blossoming trees,
his blue wings flashing in the sunshine. Even his father’s wings were not
as splendidly blue as his, and they were so strong!
It was no dream now, he knew; it was all true. And as he mounted higher
and higher he sang a song so clear and sweet and joyful that the farmer
ploughing in the field stopped, and listened with tears in his eyes.
Blue-wing’s song made him think of the tossing sea he had lived beside
when he was a boy. And the little girl heard it, as she stood at the
farm-house door, and she stood smiling up into the blue sky with thoughts
of angels in her heart.
“Did Blue-wings ever come back to the little girl,” you ask? He never
came back to the cage or the farm-house kitchen, but he lived in the
orchard and had a nest there. And whenever the child saw a wonderfully
blue glimmer through the branches, or heard a most beautiful bird’s song,
she knew that Blue-wings was near. And she remembered that it was through
her love and her care that he had lived and grown strong, able to take
his place as king of the orchard, able by his song to bring into people’s
hearts happiness too great for words.
AN EASTERN LEGEND
GRACE DUFFIELD GOODWIN
There’s a tender eastern legend,
In a volume old and rare
Of the Christ Child in his garden,
Walking with the children there.
And it tells—this strange, sweet story—
(True or false, ah, who shall say?)
How a bird with broken pinion
Dead within the garden lay.
And the children, children cruel,
Lifted it by shattered wing,
Shouting, “Make us merry music,
Sing, you lazy fellow, sing.”
But the Christ Child bent above it,
Took it in his gentle hand,
Full of pity for the suffering
He alone could understand.
Whispered to it—oh, so softly!
Laid his lips upon its throat,
And the song life, swift returning,
Sounded out in one glad note.
Then away, on wings unwearied,
Joyously it sang and soared,
And the little children kneeling
Called the Christ Child, “Master-Lord!”
THE HOUSE WREN
NELTJE BLANCHAN
When you are sound asleep some April morning, a tiny brown bird, just
returned from a long visit south, will probably alight on the perch in
front of one of your boxes, peep in the doorhole, enter—although his pert
little cocked-up tail has to be lowered to let him through—look about
with approval, go out, spring to the roof and pour out of his wee throat
a gushing torrent of music. The song seems to bubble up faster than he
can sing. After the wren’s happy discovery of a place to live, his song
will go off in a series of musical explosions all day long, now from the
roof, now from the clothes posts, the fence, the barn, or the woodpile.
There never was a more tireless, spirited, brilliant singer. From the
intensity of his feelings, he sometimes droops that expressive little
tail of his, which is usually so erect and saucy.
With characteristic energy, he frequently begins to carry twigs into the
house before he finds a mate. The day little Jenny Wren appears on the
scene, how he does sing! Dashing off for more twigs, but stopping to sing
to her every other minute, he helps furnish the cottage quickly, but,
of course, he overdoes—he carries in more twigs and hay and feathers
than the little house can hold, then pulls half of them out again. Jenny
gathers, too, for she is a bustling housewife and arranges matters with
neatness and despatch. Neither vermin nor dust will she tolerate within
her well-kept home. Everything she does to suit herself pleases her
ardent little lover. He applauds her with song; he flies about after her
with a nervous desire to protect; he seems beside himself with happiness.
Let any one pass too near his best beloved, and he begins to chatter
excitedly: “_Chit-chit-chit-chit_,” as much as to say, “Oh, do go away;
go quickly! Can’t you see how nervous and fidgety you make me?”
If you fancy that Jenny Wren, who is patiently sitting on the little
pinkish, chocolate spotted eggs in the centre of her feather bed, is a
demure, angelic creature, you have never seen her attack the sparrow,
nearly twice her size, that dares put his impudent head inside her door.
Oh! how she flies at him! How she chatters and scolds! What a plucky
little shrew she is, after all! Her piercing, chattering, scolding notes
are fairly hissed into his ears until he is thankful enough to escape.
There’s a little brown wren that has built in our tree,[10]
And she’s scarcely as big as a big bumble-bee;
She has hollowed a house in the heart of a limb,
And made the walls tidy and made the doors trim
With the down of the crow’s foot, and tow, and with straw
The cosiest dwelling that you ever saw.
The little brown wren has the brightest of eyes
And a foot of very diminutive size.
Her tail is as big as the sail of a ship.
She’s demure, though she walks with a hop and a skip;
And her voice—but a flute were more fit than a pen
To tell of the voice of the little brown wren.
One morning Sir Sparrow came sauntering by
And cast on the wren’s house an envious eye;
With a strut of bravado and toss of his head,
“I’ll put in my claim here,” the bold fellow said;
So straightway he mounted on impudent wing,
And entered the door without pausing to ring.
An instant—, and swiftly that feathery knight
All towsled and tumbled, in terror took flight,
While there by the door, in her favourite perch,
As neat as a lady just starting for church,
With this song on her lips, “He will not call again
Unless he is asked,” sat the little brown wren.
If the bluebirds had her courage and hot, quick temper, they would never
let the sparrows drive them away from their boxes. Unfortunately a
hole large enough to admit a bluebird will easily admit those grasping
monopolists; but Jenny Wren is safe, if she did but know it, in her house
with its tiny front door. It is amusing to see a sparrow try to work his
shoulders through the small hole of an empty wren house, pushing and
kicking madly, but all in vain.
What rent do the wrens pay for their little houses? No man is clever
enough to estimate the vast numbers of insects on your place that they
destroy. They eat nothing else, which is the chief reason why they are
so lively and excitable. Unable to soar after flying insects because
of their short, round wings, they keep, as a rule, rather close to the
ground which their finely barred brown feathers so closely match. Whether
hunting for grubs in the wood-pile, scrambling over the brush heap after
spiders, searching among the trees to provide a dinner for their large
families, or creeping, like little feathered mice, in queer nooks and
crannies among the outbuildings on the farm, they are always busy in your
interest which is also theirs. It certainly pays, in every sense, to
encourage the wrens.
THE CHILDREN OF WIND AND THE CLAN OF PEACE
A CHRIST LEGEND
FIONA MACLEOD
It was the last month of the last year of the seven years’ silence and
peace. When would that be, you ask?
Surely what other would it be than the seven holy years when Jesus the
Christ was a little lad.
It was a still day. The little white flowers that were called Breaths of
Hope and that we now call Stars of Bethlehem were so hushed in quiet that
the shadows of the moths lay on them like the dark motionless violet in
the hearts of pansies. In the long swords of tender grass the multitude
of the daisies were white as milk faintly stained with flusht dews fallen
from roses. On the meadows of white poppies were long shadows blue as the
blue lagoons of the sky among drifting snow white moors of cloud. Three
white aspens on the pastures were in a still sleep; their tremulous
leaves made no rustle; ewes and lambs were sleeping and yearling kids
opened and closed their eyes among the garths of white clover.
It was Sabbath and Jesus walked alone. When He came to a little rise
in the grass He turned and looked back at the house where His parents
dwelled. Suddenly He heard a noise as of many birds and turned and looked
beyond the low upland where He stood. A pool of pure water lay in the
hollow, fed by a ceaseless wellspring and round it and over it circled
birds whose breasts were grey as pearl and whose necks shone purple and
grass green and rose. The noise was of their wings, for though the birds
were beautiful they were voiceless and dumb as flowers.
At the edge of the pool stood two figures like angels, but the child did
not know them. One He saw was beautiful as Night, and one beautiful as
Morning.
He drew near.
“I have lived seven years,” He said, “and I wish to send peace to the far
ends of the world.”
“Tell your secret to the birds,” said one.
“Tell your secret to the birds,” said the other.
So Jesus called the birds.
“Come,” He cried, and they came.
Seven came flying from the left, from the side of the angel beautiful
as Night. Seven came flying from the right, from the side of the angel
beautiful as Morning.
To the first He said: “Look into my heart.”
But they wheeled about Him, and with new found voices mocked, crying,
“How could we see into your heart that is hidden ...” and mocked and
derided, crying, “What is Peace! ... leave us alone. Leave us alone.”
So Christ said to them: “I know you for the birds of Evil. Henceforth ye
shall be black as night, and be children of the winds.”
To the seven other birds which circled about Him, voiceless, and brushing
their wings against His arms, He cried:
“Look into my heart.”
And they swerved and hung before Him in a maze of wings, and looked into
His pure heart: and, as they looked, a soft murmurous sound came from
them—drowsy, sweet, full of peace—and as they hung there like a breath in
frost they became white as snow.
“Ye are the Doves of the Spirit,” said Christ, “and to you I will commit
that which ye have seen. Henceforth shall your plumage be white and your
voices be the voices of peace.”
The young Christ turned, for He heard Mary calling to the sheep and
goats, and knew that dayset was come and that in the valleys the gloaming
was already rising like smoke from the urns of the twilight. When he
looked back he saw that seven white doves were in the cedar beyond the
pool, cooing in low ecstasy of peace and awaiting through sleep and
dreams the rose-red pathways of the dawn. Down the long grey reaches of
the ebbing day He saw seven birds rising and falling on the wind black
as black water in caves, black as the darkness of night in old pathless
woods.
And that is how the first doves became white, and how the first crows
became black and were called by a name that means the clan of darkness,
the children of wind.
IN MEADOW AND POND
A SPRING LILT
Through the silver mist
Of the blossom-spray
Trill the orioles: list
To their joyous lay!
“What in all the world
In all the world,” they say,
“Is half so sweet, so sweet,
Is half so sweet as May?”
“June! June! June!”
Low croon
The brown bees in the clover.
“Sweet! sweet! sweet!”
Repeat
The robins, nestled over.
_Unknown._
HOW BUTTERFLIES CAME
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
One day the flowers begged the fairies to let them leave their stalks and
fly away into the air.
“We have to sit here in the same place from morning till night, fairies!
Do let us go!”
“Go then, dear flowers,” said the fairies. “But you must promise that you
will return to your stalks before the sun goes down.”
“We promise,” called out the flowers as they flew away, red, yellow, and
white, over the grass, out of the garden to the great wide meadow beyond.
The fairies’ garden seemed, suddenly, to have taken wings.
As the sun began to set the flowers flew quietly back to their stalks,
and when the fairies came, they found each flower again in its place.
“Well done, well done!” exclaimed the fairies. “To-morrow you may fly
away again to the meadows.”
As the sun rose the next morning there was a flutter of red and yellow
and white as, from every stalk, a pair of coloured wings rose and
flapped, then took flight once more over the meadows and fields. And by
and by a day came when the petals of the flowers became wings—_real_
wings, for the flowers themselves had become beautiful butterflies—red,
yellow and white.
WHITE BUTTERFLIES
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Fly, white butterflies, out to sea,
Frail, pale wings for the wind to try,
Small white wings that we scarce can see,
Fly.
Some fly light as a laugh of glee,
Some fly soft as a long, low sigh;
All to the haven where each should be,
Fly.
THE BUTTERFLY
MRS. ALFRED GATTY
“Let me hire you as a nurse for my poor children,” said a Butterfly
to a quiet Caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage-leaf in her
odd lumbering way. “See these little eggs,” continued the Butterfly;
“I don’t know how long it will be before they come to life, and I feel
very sick and poorly, and if I should die, who will take care of my baby
butterflies when I am gone? Will _you_, kind, mild, green Caterpillar?
But you must mind what you give them to eat, Caterpillar!—they cannot,
of course, live on _your_ rough food. You must give them early dew, and
honey from the flowers; and you must let them fly about only a little
way at first; for, of course, one can’t expect them to use their wings
properly all at once. Dear me, it is a sad pity you cannot fly yourself!
But I have no time to look for another nurse now, so you will do your
best, I hope. Dear, dear! I cannot think what made me come and lay my
eggs on a cabbage-leaf! What a place for young butterflies to be born
upon! Still you will be kind, will you not, to the poor little ones?
Here, take this gold-dust from my wings as a reward. Oh, how dizzy I am!
Caterpillar, you will remember about the food—”
And with these words the Butterfly drooped her wings and was gone; and
the green Caterpillar, who had not had the opportunity of even saying
Yes or No to the request, was left standing alone by the side of the
Butterfly’s eggs.
“A pretty nurse she has chosen, indeed, poor lady!” exclaimed she, “and
a pretty business I have in hand! Why, her senses must have left her, or
she never would have asked a poor crawling creature like me to bring up
her dainty little ones! Much they’ll mind me, truly, when they feel the
gay wings on their backs, and can fly away out of my sight whenever they
choose! Ah! how silly some people are, in spite of their painted clothes
and the gold-dust on their wings!”
However, the poor Butterfly was gone, and there lay the eggs on the
cabbage-leaf; and the green Caterpillar had a kind heart, so she resolved
to do her best. But she got no sleep that night, she was so very anxious.
She made her back quite ache with walking all night round her young
charges, for fear any harm should happen to them; and in the morning says
she to herself—
“Two heads are better than one. I will consult some wise animal upon the
matter, and get advice. How should a poor crawling creature like me know
what to do without asking my betters?”