EARNING A TITLE 15 



"I'd rather you did hit me," I answered, "than 

 to have you strike a bird when its eyes are like that ! 

 Oh, Father, please don't kill him! He never can 

 fly again. Give him to me! Do please give him 

 to me!" 



"Keep back!" cried my father. "He will tear 

 your face!" 



Father was an ordained minister, better versed 

 in Biblical history than any other man I ever 

 have known intimately. To him, "hawk" meant 

 "Ayit." This old Hebrew word, literally trans- 

 lated, means "to tear and scratch the face." 

 That is exactly what a hawk meant to my father; 

 the word and bird were synonymous. To me, it 

 meant something very different, because I had 

 watched this pair of kingly birds carry heavy 

 sticks and limbs, with which they had built a nest 

 in a big oak tree overhanging a bank of the brook 

 that ran through our meadow. The structure was 

 bigger than a bushel basket, but no one else of our 

 family knew about it, because it was well screened 

 by the leaves of the tree. It was part of my self- 

 imposed, daily task to gather up from the bank 

 skeletons of any wild bird, rabbit, or domestic fowl, 

 which the hawks had dropped there, and consign 

 them to the current so that the telltale evidence of 

 their location was quickly carried down stream. 

 I envied these birds their power to soar in the face 

 of the wind, to ride with the stiff gale of a beating 

 storm, or to hang motionless as if frozen in air. 



