THE STORY OF A GARDEN I3I 



it a gift, that it might always yield an 

 offering to the year, and presently it 

 grew so lovable that there came to it a 

 soul. 



The song-sparrow knows that this is 

 so; the mottled owl that lives in the 

 hollow sassafras has told it to the night- 

 hawk. Catbirds and robins, routed 

 from other gardens by fusillades, still 

 their quick-throbbing hearts, feeling 

 its protection. The coward crow alone 

 knows its exclusion, for he was un- 

 housed from the tall pines and banished 

 for fratricide. The purling bluebird, 

 claiming the pole-top house as an 

 ancestral bequest, repeats the story 

 every springtime. The oriole and 

 swallow whisper of it in their south- 

 ward course, and, returning, bring with 

 them willing colonists. 



The rock polypody creeps along in 

 confidence, with no ruthless hand to 



