TO THE CHILDREN

Greeting!

The preservation of the useful and beautiful animal and bird-life of the country depends largely upon creating in the young an interest in the life of the woods and fields.

If the child mind is fed with stories that are false to nature, the children will go to the haunts of the animal only to meet disappointment. The result will be disbelief, and the death of interest. The men who misinterpret nature and replace fact with fiction, undo the work of those who in the love of nature interpret it aright.

—Theodore Roosevelt.

The author desires to thank Mr. William Dutcher for permission to reproduce the Drawings of Birds prepared under his supervision for the Educational Leaflets of the National Association of Audubon Societies; Mr. Frank M. Chapman for the quotation of material that has appeared in Bird-Lore, also for photographs from his negatives; the American Museum of Natural History of New York City for photographs of its groups representing Bird-Life at Cobbs Island, Virginia, and Birds of the St. Joaquin Valley; to Dr. T. S. Roberts, Dr. C. F. Hodge, R. H. Beebe, and E. van Alterna, for use of valuable photographs; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for their courtesy in allowing quotations from the poems of Celia Thaxter, Maurice Thompson, Frank Bolles, Lowell, and others; Charles Scribner’s Sons for like permission to use the poems of G. P. Lathrop and Henry van Dyke.

Also to Dr. Henry van Dyke, Edmund C. Stedman, Edith M. Thomas, Oliver Herford, Dora Reed Goodale, George Parsons Lathrop, Dr. Garrett Newkirk, Faith C. Lee, Ella Gilbert Ives, Florence A. Van Zant, Lynn Tew Sprague, Richard Burton, W. B. Blake, and others for the use of their poems, etc.

The training of the eye to correct seeing is one of the great advantages of bird study to the average child, quite aside from the value of the information gained, for this accurate gauge of the eye will always be a benefit in whatever calling may be followed, adding alike to the pleasure and profit of life.

In every town or country village there is some one who takes more than passing interest in the life outdoors, who has a keener eye and more responsive ear than his neighbour, coupled with a heart that has a bit of Eden still lodged in it, so that it keeps tender and yearning toward the simple, direct affections of life, as expressed in childhood and the lives of the timid wild brotherhood, whether of foot or wing. Are you one of these? If so, do you not realize that from your very make-up you draw more freely from nature’s bounty than do your neighbours, and are you not bound to share your pleasure with them? Not alone because it is pleasure, but that through the knowledge that comes with all real joy, the wild bird or beast may be more fully understood, and therefore protected. All the more is this just and right, because we ourselves in our advancement are the main cause of their need of this protection, for as man increases, possesses, builds, and overflows the earth, so do these “kindred of the wild” dwindle and silently disappear.

The lesser beasts keep more aloof than do the birds. These still gather freely in our gardens, fields, and woods if we permit, and if we offer food and shelter, many quickly become responsive.

Will not you who enjoy this friendship share it with others to whom it is perhaps entirely unknown and unguessed, and to whom even the names of birds, beyond a familiar few such as Hawk, Owl, Robin, and Sparrow, are an unknown language?

The bird lectures are many, but there are those who cannot reach them. The bird protective societies are tireless, but the ground must be prepared for the message they send forth, and there is no better way for doing this than by the influence of a personality working quietly and unconsciously that infects all with whom it comes in contact with its wholesome enthusiasm.

If you are a parent or teacher, well and good; your field is ready at hand. If not, you may still become the equivalent of both in your community even though you lack some of Gray Lady’s attributes and resources.

If you have the right faculty and books at hand, you do not need my aid; but if the work of holding youth is as yet an untried experiment, tuck this little volume into the corner of your school desk, the magazine rack, or your work-basket at home, for rainy days or the between times when lack of occupation breeds mischief.

Much that is told in the following pages was thought out, in another form, especially for the use of teachers of the rural schools of Connecticut, but it is applicable to the needs of children in any of the eastern states, and whether the knowledge passes from the school to the home or the home to the school, the process is the same. The walk between the rural school and home along bushy lanes and tree-bordered highways, however, is an important link in the chain.

For children so placed the birds and every possible motive for wanting to know them lie at hand, but for this very reason the public library wherein the books to answer questions may be found is perhaps many miles away and it is not possible for every school or home to own the necessary bird books or charts.

It must not for a moment be thought that any attempt is made to say anything new or add to the information given in the many excellent and complete books now in circulation, but merely to condense in a simple form things that have been said. Not detailed descriptions and tabulated facts—for these repel the beginner and seem but the spelling-book or multiplication table in a new form—but to record the doings of some children who were eager to know; together with a few hints upon the migrations, winter feeding, and protection of some of our common birds, and the stories of their lives, that may lead both teacher and pupil to more detailed study when opportunity offers.

When a strange child comes to school, the first desire of his mates is to know his name and nationality, from whence he came, where he lives, whether he is merely a visitor or to be a permanent resident in the community. All this must be weighed and well considered before the newcomer is admitted to the friendship of his mates, and it may be that there will be some prejudices against him that the teacher must either remove by explanation or overcome by reason and example.

It is very much the same with a bird. After being attracted to him and fixing upon his name as an individual his identity should be still further established by finding to what family he belongs and then later on placing this family in one of the great orders of the bird world. These two last should not be dwelt upon, however, until the identity as an individual is established, but in the end it will help to keep the name in the memory to know the kinship of families as well.

There are many little points of comparison, of scientific but not general value that cannot be seen unless the dead bird is held in the hand, and then only a wise man, perhaps, would be able to point them out. It is with the living bird, on the wing or in its nest in the bushes, that we are concerned; not with the poor little dead thing with its limp neck and bloody, rumpled feathers.

We should not learn enough from such a bird to in any way make up for taking its life; it would be both wasteful and against the law. So we must be content to believe what the Wise Men say, who must study the dead birds in order to preserve the scientific knowledge of their structure and keep them in public museums, that they may teach the world how wonderful a thing bird-life is, and show us that we must do all we can to protect it. For the Wise Men know very well that—

M. O. W.

GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS

Sarah Barnes hurried up the hill road so fast that by the time she reached the short bit of lane that turned in at her own gate she was quite out of breath, and oh, so warm! Fanning vigorously with her sun-hat did not help her much, for its wide rim had a rent in it, made by Jack, the family puppy, so that when she reached the steps of the porch, she sank down in a heap, only having breath enough to exclaim, “Oh, grandma, what do you think?”

Old lady Barnes with a sigh dropped the checked shirt that she was patching into the big work-basket that rested on the bench beside her. This basket was already overflowing with other garments for both boys and girls, that needed everything in the way of repair from a button to a knee patch, or even to a whole sleeve, for with a slim purse and six children to keep covered neither Grandma Barnes’ work-basket nor her fingers knew many empty moments.

Taking off her spectacles and rubbing her eyes, as if to see the news as well as to hear it, she said: “Don’t tell me Tommy has got hurt in that reaping-machine, down at Weatherby’s. I told your pa he was too young to handle such a job!”

“No, Tommy’s all right—they were gathering in the last stack as I came by.”

“Lammy hasn’t gone in swimming again down to the crick with the Connor boys?”

“Nope, he’s stopped behind at the Centre to tend store for Mr. Sims, ’cause his horse got loose in Deacon Mason’s orchard and ate himself into the colic!”

“Billy hasn’t fell off the fish-market roof, has he? Your pa took him there this mornin’ to help hand up shingles, though ’twas against my wishes.”

“No, grandma, Billy’s all right, too,” said Sarah, who had recovered her breath by this time and was beginning to laugh. “What makes you always think worry? Pa is all right, and Mary and Ruth are helping the minister’s wife get the hall ready for the cake sale, and I’m here, so you see there’s nothing the matter with us.”

“Think worry!” exclaimed grandma, now settling her glasses again and preparing to hear the news comfortably so long as neither her son nor his children, to whom she was both grandmother and mother, were in danger, “wait until your only son’s wife dies and leaves you to keep track of six children, with as mixed tempers and complexions as ducks, chickens, and turkeys all in one brood, and I guess you’ll think worry too. But why don’t you fetch out your news?—Not but what you are all good and promising enough in your way,” she added hastily, lest she should be found belittling her own flesh and blood, which she considered next to breaking the whole ten commandments.

“Well, granny,” began Sarah, bringing out her words slowly, and satisfied that the old lady’s expectations were sufficiently raised and that she would have an attentive listener, “the General Wentworth place is open and they’re putting new fences all around the back of it, and a lovely Gray Lady and a little girl with golden hair have come to live there. They have been there since spring too, and I didn’t know it. The girl is as old as me, but she’s smaller, for she isn’t strong and sits in a wheel-chair, and they’ve asked me to come in again.”

Off came the glasses, and the old hands that folded them away in their case trembled with excitement. “The General Wentworth place open after all these years, since his only daughter Elizabeth married her cousin John, whom we all expected to die a bachelor, and then he fell into poor health! You don’t remember him, Sarah Barnes, ’cause you wasn’t born, but he was a mighty strange fellow, handsome and likely; he wouldn’t be a soldier as his uncle wished, but he was great for readin’ books, and he used to wander all over the country here watching birds and things and drawin’ pictures of them. I heard John died a couple of years ago away in foreign parts,—it can’t be Elizabeth that’s come back,—she wouldn’t be a gray-haired old woman, as you say. I knew her when she was a girl. She was full of life and rode a pony everywhere; her father used to bring her over to our mill, and many a ginger cooky of my baking has she ate. No, it can’t be little Miss Elizabeth,—it’s more likely some one that has hired or bought the place and goin’ to upset and change it all.”

“I didn’t say the lady was old, grandma; she has lots of soft, silvery, wavy hair with big gray eyes to match, and such a pretty colour in her cheeks, and her dress was soft and fluffy too and the colour as if purple and white violets and silver popple leaves were all mixed together,” said Sarah, moving her hands before her, a little way she had when talking, as if in describing what she had seen she was touching the real object, for Sarah, though only a little girl from a bare hillside farm and taught at the school below at Foxes Corners, had a keen eye for colour and loved beautiful things, so that ugliness or unkindness of any sort really hurt her if she could have explained her feelings.

“My Gray Lady’s first name is Elizabeth, though, and she knows you and your molasses cakes,” continued Sarah, after a moment’s pause, “for she said, ‘When you go home say to your grandmother that Elizabeth who rode the black pony sends her love, and that she will go to see her soon, and that she hopes that she will give the little Elizabeth some of the cookies of which she has often heard.’ Elizabeth is the little girl, but I’m going to call her Goldilocks, because the name matches her hair and she looks as if she was meant to—

“Elizabeth Wentworth and her daughter back here and I never knew it!” cried Grandma Barnes, rising as if to take immediate action. “Your Aunt Jane might well say, as she did on her last visit, that this hill farm is as far out o’ the world as livin’ in a lighthouse that had no stairs or boat to it, and the only way to get anywhere was to take a dive and swim. But see here, Sarah Barnes, how did you come to meet the General’s folks? It’s near a mile from the road up from the Centre to their front gate; mebbe you ran across them in the village, and if so, how came you to speak?”

Sarah opened her lips to answer and then stammered and grew red under her grandmother’s keen gaze. “I didn’t pass their gate and I didn’t meet them in the village. I was—I was just taking a bunch of field flowers, that I got along the road, up to the cemetery to mother, and then when I go there, I usually take some to the General’s mound too, ’cause nobody took anything, except a little flag Memorial Day, and it’s usually all faded by now. This year, though, the lot was planted with flowers, and I was wondering why. I was sittin’ there watching a gray squirrel that lives in one of the old cannons that stand at the plot corners. You see the squirrel knows me because I’ve taken him nuts two winters whenever we’ve gone to Pine Hill coasting, and he comes up real close. To-day when he came up, I only had some cracker crumbs in my pocket, but he acted real pleased to see me, and I was so busy talking to him that I didn’t hear anybody coming up until somebody said, ‘Who is this little girl that brings flowers to an old soldier’s grave, and has a squirrel for a friend?’ ”

“A nice way of wasting your time, I must say, of a week-day afternoon, and so much to be done at home,” broke in Mrs. Barnes, rather crossly.

But Sarah, not minding the interruption, continued: “Then I jumped up, and there was Gray Lady and Goldilocks sitting in a nice big straw chair, like those on Judge Jones’ porch, only it had wheels and a handle behind like a baby wagon, and a fattish woman with a pleasant face was pushing it.”

“Well, what happened next?” asked grandma. “I wonder she didn’t tell you not to trespass and feed animals in a cemetery!”

“Oh, no, she liked it, and we got acquainted right away. She asked me what put it in my head to bring the flowers, and told her that it was because nobody else did and that I loved the General because my mother told me that though he lived through a lot of battles, he got the wound that made him die long after, in trying to get back a little black child that had been sold away from its mother, for it’s an awful thing to take children away from their mothers, and only God should do it, and I know He must be always sorry when He has to. And I said I knew how it hurt because He took my mother away from me.

“Goldilocks said she wished that she had a tame squirrel down in her garden, and I said there were plenty of squirrels there, and she could begin to tame ’em as soon as food gets scarce. Then she asked how I knew, and then it all came out that Dave and Tommy Todd, Mary, and I often take a cross-cut through the General’s orchard, when we go over to Aunt Jane’s. Then they asked me to walk down home with them.

“There was a new high fence all round the orchard, with a gate by the old house in the corner that has the big stone chimney, where the Swallows live, so we can’t cut across any more, and before I thought, I said so; but Gray Lady said, ‘I think, Sarah, it will be quite as pleasant for you to come in at the front gate, and go out at the back, as to crawl through a hole in the brush like a fox or a woodchuck,’ and I guess it will, for she doesn’t want us to stop coming.

“Then I asked her if the house had lovely pictures in it and birds with real eyes sitting on perches, and more books than the Sunday-school library, and she laughed and asked who told me that, and I said it was Jake Gorham that went up there to set new glass in the roof light after the hail-storm last summer.”

“Sarah Barnes! such gall as to make free and talk to General Wentworth’s daughter like that! I just wonder what she thinks of you!”

“She didn’t tell me, grandma; but, oh, what do you suppose, she said that if I came down some afternoon, she’d show me all the pictures and then I could tell Goldilocks how to begin to make friends with the squirrels, and that she would show me their tree with a lunch-counter on it for birds, where there is something for every kind to eat. Do you suppose she will ask me for this Saturday, grandma, and may I wear my pink lawn, if it stays warm? My Sunday dress for fall shows where the hem was let down.”

“She may and then again mayhap ’twill be the last you’ll ever hear of it. Come to think of it, in those days my ginger cookies were mixed with butter instead of lard, and they had currants in them. I guess I’ll risk it to make a batch to-morrow, lest Mrs. John should come up—that is if I finish all this mending, for there is only one more Saturday and Labor Day, and then school opens, and all you girls and boys will be making excuses for shirking your chores. Five o’clock already! Sarah Barnes, do you go straight out and feed the chickens and then rinse those milk-pans,—that comes first before all the fine talk of seein’ pictures and making pies and cakes for birds.”

Sarah went slowly toward the barnyard and fed the greedy fowls in an absent-minded sort of way, all the while looking across the field where the birds were beginning to gather in flocks, wishing she knew them all by name and thinking of Gray Lady and Goldilocks. Would they remember the invitation or would she never perhaps see them again? School would soon begin, and that meant no spare time until after four, and it is so often rainy on Saturday.

Rain did not wait for Saturday this time, for a heavy drizzle set in that night, and Sarah went to sleep wondering exactly what a bird lunch-counter was and what became of it when it rained.

Then school began, and her new friend made no sign, and Sarah began to wonder if her meeting with Gray Lady had been one of the dreams she so often had when she sat on the orchard fence in June watching the bobolinks fly over the clover and waiting for things to happen.