There is a funny fellow that chips in just after sunset, with "Will's Widow ! 

 Will's Widow !" and keeps it up until midnight. We have never found his nest, 

 nor have we any idea whether he considers his ejaculations to be musical or 

 prosaic. But he punctuates the hours until "Bob White," just at daybreak, crowds 

 him out with his hearty calls under our window. 



■'Bob" is so wonderfully like our Rhode Island Reds that we are always 

 glad to have him invade the yard, and if he brings a family of sixteen to twenty 

 to breakfast, all the better. He is an inquisitive fellow and very soon finds out 

 where he is welcome. Everybody likes him, but most people prefer him on the 

 platter. Xo man shall glorify his sportsmanship by shooting "Bob" when he 

 comes to us for protection. He has already found that out right well. 



We are not quite sure that birds do not study us quite as much as we study 

 them. There are kodaks pointed at us out of the bushes, and memoranda made 

 that do not always go into print. It reads possibly like this : "A sober old couple 

 lives in the cottage by Lake Lucy." "The people on Sconondo Knolls don't mind 

 it if we help ourselves to cherries when hungry." "We know where an old lady 

 lives that hangs out bones of cold mornings for birds to pick." This is not 

 written out on foolscap, with Dixon's pencils, but a bird memory Avill serve as 

 well as a school boy's slate. 



Sure enough ! We looked into the kumquat this morning, and there were 

 three more mouths wide open and three pairs of eyes studying us potentially. 

 Observation on both sides, and the birds were calling on an old inheritance for 

 an explanation of our sort of folk. Some ancestor had laid up in their brains a 

 bad record of human folk in general ; "stupid," "selfish," "arrogant." We will 

 try to correct the record and shall be on our best behavior while these fellows are 

 watching us. Short on English, they gave us a bit of bird talk and we answered 

 in the same pidgin English. We chippered a bit, and tried to get acquainted. 

 In this way if we meet the valuable birds half way they will soon come the rest 

 of the way, and home will be vastly more homeful. 



^^'e are ambitious to have a bird house at every turn in our garden walks. 

 We have seven in the grape vines around our Northern home, mostly robins' 

 nests. These fellows know that they are natural human companions. The indigo 

 bird and the catbird are not far away, but they are well hid. In the fall one likes 

 to run across a goldfinch nest in a currant bush, and all summer a right sort of 

 man steps carefully in his clover field, and works in his raspberry lot with caution 

 lest he disturb a sparrow's home. It is curious what a company of co-workers 

 we can become if we will. Only never lose yourself in the forest of supposing 

 these song-full companions are not also thoughtful and friendly. God made this 

 world in such a way that we need co-operation with all sorts of creatures to make 

 our homes complete. 



Down here in Florida we have not found a single bird's nest that shows 

 architectural skill. The birds all seem to be so wrapped up in the simplicities of 

 everydav life that they dispensed with art. The mockingbird is even more care- 



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