THE PALACE IN THE PIG-PEN 49 



To make a bird-house of a pig-pen, to divide it 

 between the pig and the bird this is as far as Na- 

 ture can go, and this is certainly enough to redeem 

 the whole farm. For she has not sent an outcast or 

 a scavenger to dwell in the pen, but a bird of char- 

 acter, however much he may lack in song or color. 

 Phoebe does not make up well in a picture; neither 

 does he perform well as a singer; there is little to 

 him, in fact, but personality personality of a kind 

 and (may I say?) quantity, sufficient to make the 

 pig-pen a decent and respectable neighborhood. 



Phoebe is altogether more than his surroundings. 

 Every time I go to feed the pig, he lights upon a 

 post near by and says to me, " It 's what you are ! 

 Not what you do, but how you do it ! " with a 

 launch into the air, a whirl, an unerring snap at 

 a cabbage butterfly, and an easy drop to the post 

 again, by way of illustration. u Not where you live, 

 but how you live there; not the feathers you wear, 

 but how you wear them it is what you are that 

 counts!" 



There is a difference between being a " character" 

 and having one. My phcebe "lives over the pig," 

 but I cannot feel familiar with a bird of his air and 

 carriage, who faces the world so squarely, who settles 

 upon a stake as if he owned it, who lives a prince 

 in my pig-pen. 



Look at him ! How alert, able, free ! Notice the 

 limber drop of his tail, the ready energy it suggests. 



