166 DOWN THE MEADOW. 



His little family, not yet out of the nest, was 

 settled safely enough behind a clumj) of bushes 

 that fringed the marsh. But he, in his role of 

 protector, had taken possession of two trees on 

 the high land, where he could overlook the 

 whole neighborhood, and see all the dangers, 

 real and fancied, that might, could, would, or 

 should threaten them, and "borrow trouble" 

 to his heart's content. The trees, this bird's 

 headquarters, were an aged and half -dead cherry 

 and a scraggy and wind-battered elm, standing 

 perhaps a hundred feet apart. On the top 

 twig of one of these, or flying across between 

 them, he was most of the time to be seen, and 

 his various cries of distress, as well as his 

 wild, woodsy song, came plainly up to me in my 

 window. 



The troubles of this Martha-like character 

 began when mowers brought their clattering 

 machine, and with rasping noise and confusion 

 dire laid low the grass which had isolated him 

 from the rest of the world, and that impertinent 

 world poured in. First came crows, from their 

 homes in the woods beyond the pasture, to feast 

 on the numerous hoppers and crawlers left roof- 

 less by the mowers, and to procure food for their 

 hungry young, and alighted in the stubble, two 

 or three or half a dozen at a time. By this the 

 soul of the redwing was fired, and with savage 



