246 A COMPOSITE FAMILY 



edges, cutting "across lots" through the most care- 

 fully tended of hay fields, living as a squatter im- 

 possible to uproot around the edges of pastures, 

 and impertinently lounging along the grass borders 

 of the garden, even after being violently turned 

 away many times from the flower-beds where it 

 sought shelter behind the large branches of her- 

 baceous perennials. Of itself clear-cut and hand- 

 some, the flower that children love and may 

 gather by the bushel unchidden ; of wonderful 

 landscape value when massed; this poor Ox-eye 

 Daisy has gained ill repute from an inherent tact- 

 lessness, for which it is no more responsible than 

 is the English sparrow for his inordinate appetite, 

 fertility, and manners unbecoming a gentlemanly 

 bird. Both flower and bird usurp the places of 

 their betters with a familiarity of demeanor which 

 has bred in us an aggressive contempt. 



"Both had ought to be drove out!" ejaculated 

 Time o' Year one day as, looking across his best 

 hay meadow, resown only two years before, he 

 realized that it was more white than green, while, 

 at the same time, a partly disabled bluebird tumbled 

 to the fence in front of him, having been worsted 

 by a sparrow as he defended his home in a hollow 

 apple branch. 



