The Rambles of an Idler 



up approvingly by metropolitan dailies. These 

 statements deserve place now among cabinets 

 of curiosities. Our grandparents read them 

 believingly, and we are so far given to ancestor- 

 worship that we accept these dicta still because 

 they are time-honored. I can imagine no other 

 reason, for certainly they are not true. The 

 blue-bird, particularly, has been persistently 

 misrepresented. All winter long they kept faith 

 alive in the coming of milder days. As an in- 

 stance, the second after the memorable sleet 

 storm of February 21, 1902, was a crystalline 

 day. The world was in a glass case, cracked 

 in some places and shivered in others, but still 

 held together, like a vase that though broken 

 yet retains the beauty of its outlines. The 

 fierce crashing of ice-laden boughs, the pitiless 

 sleet of a few hours previously had driven all 

 animal life to such shelter as it could find. 

 Much of such life, we know, is always fully pre- 

 pared for such emergencies, but what of the 

 birds? Can we say positively that, fore-feeling 

 the storm, they fled? Certainly, if exposed to 

 its fury, thousands must have perished. It is 

 quite improbable that they rose above it and 

 circled in quiet space until the fury of the tem- 



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