to him. and he would sit for hours pondering on his bachelor's lor, and singing 

 more notes. 



Now, wild birds are constantly having something "happen" to them. They 

 fly against a wire or get a, wing hurt, or the young fall out of the nest and can't 

 find their mother. Dicky's mistress was always on the lookout for such accidents, 

 and she brought such birds into the house and nursed them and brought them 

 back to health when possible. It occurred to her to ofifer a "calling" or "voca- 

 tion" to Dicky. So she ^made a small private hospital of his cage, into which 

 she placed the victims of accident or sickness as she found them. Dicky was 

 surprised, never having seen a bird save his parents, and his lady-love in his 

 dreams, and at first he stood on tiptoe and was frightened. 



But he learned to be kind after a while, and to show his visitors where the 

 food and water were kept, and to snuggle up to them on the perch when it 

 came bedtime. Many and many a poor invalid did he aid in restoring to freedom 

 and flight, until he became pretty well a^jquainted with the birds that nest in 

 our grounds. 



Year after year the good work went on, and Dicky developed more musical 

 talent, until he sang sweetly, imitating the finches and linnets outside. In the fall 

 of the year, when the wild birds were thinking of their annual migrations, Dicky 

 himself grew restless and quit his songs. Then his mistress opened his door 

 and told him he might "go." Not far away, of course, but all about in the room, 

 that seemed to this caged bird as big as any world could be. In his quest for 

 liew nooks he came by accident upon the mirror above the fireplace. Standing 

 on the edge of a little vase before the glass, just in front of the beveled edge of it. 

 he espied two yellow birds, one in the glass itself and another in the beveled 

 edge, as a strict law of science had determined should be the case. 



In a second the whole bearing of the bird was changed. His feathers lay 

 close, his legs stood long and slim, and his eyes bulged as they never had bulged 

 since the lids parted when he was two weeks old. Then he found voice. He 

 sang as never a green bird sang sweeter. He turned his head and the two birds 

 in the glass turned their heads. He preened his wing and the two birds preened 

 each a wing. His little throat swelled out in melody, the tip of his beak pointing 

 straight to the ceiling of the big room as if it were indeed the blue sky, and the 

 two birds sang with uplifted beaks and swelling throats. They were of his 

 own kind, his own race, his own ancestral comrades. And they were not green ! 

 The low mesas of the Canary Islands never resounded to such melody. 



But melody was not food, at least so thought Dicky's mistress, as she 

 tempted the bird in vain to eat. Not a crumb would he touch until placed back 

 in his cage, where he straightway forgot his recent discoveries. As usual, he 

 took his bread and cooky to the water-dish and set it to soak for dinner, and 

 scattered his seeds about the cage floor in his eagerness to dispose of the non- 

 essentials, the hemp only being, in his opinion, suitable for his needs. Of course 

 he was obliged to pick up his crumbs after he had thus assorted the varieties. 



379 



