BIRD STORIES 



the people in the world. Bob did n't eat his in soup or 

 pudding or chop-suey. He used neither spoon nor chop- 

 sticks. He took his in the good old-fashioned way of his 

 own folk — unripe, as most of us take our sweet corn, 

 green and in the tender, milky stage, fresh from the 

 stalk. He had been having a rather heavy meat diet in 

 Maine, the meadow insects being abundant, and he rel- 

 ished the change. There was doubtless a good healthy 

 reason for the ceremony of the Feast of the Vagabonds, 

 as anyone who saw Bob may have guessed; for by the 

 time he left South Carolina he was as fat as butter. 



In following the Great Rice Trail, Bob went over the 

 same road that he had taken the spring before when he 

 was northward bound; but one could hardly believe him 

 to be the same bird, for he looked different and he acted 

 differently. In the late summer, the departing bird was 

 dull of hue and, except for a few notes that once in a 

 great while escaped him, like some nearly forgotten 

 echo of the spring, he had no more music in him than 

 his mate. May. And when they went southward, they 

 went all together — the fathers and mothers and sons 

 and daughters in one great company. 



In the spring it had all been different : Bob had come 

 north with his vagabond brothers a bit ahead of the 

 sister-folk. And the vagabond brothers had been gay 

 of garb — fresh black and white, with a touch of buff. 



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