MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 9 



enough from the sunbeams, and at last made up my 

 mind that I would celebrate my vintage the next morn- 

 ing. But the robins too had somehow kept note of 

 them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews 

 into the promised land, before I was stirring. When I 

 went with my basket, at least a dozen of these winged 

 vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and alight- 

 ing on the nearest trees interchanged some shrill re- 

 marks about me of a derogatory nature. They had fairly 

 sacked the vine. Not Wellington's veterans made 

 cleaner work of a Spanish town ; not Federals or Con- 

 federates were ever more impartial in the confiscation of 

 neutral chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to 

 surprise the fair Fidele with, but the robins made them 

 a profounder secret to her than I had meant. The tat- 

 tered remnant of a single bunch was all my harvest- 

 home. How paltry it looked at the bottom of my 

 basket, as if a humming-bird had laid her egg in an 

 eagle's nest ! I could not help laughing ; and the robins 

 seemed to join heartily in the merriment. There was a 

 native grape-vine close by, blue with its less refined 

 abundance, but my cunning thieves preferred the foreign 

 flavor. Could I tax them with want of taste ? 



The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, 

 as, like primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return 

 of light and warmth to the world, is unrivalled. There 

 are a hundred singing like one. They are noisy enough 

 then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. 

 But when they come after cherries to the tree near my 

 window, they muffle their voices, and their faint pip, 

 pip, pop ! sounds far away at the bottom of the gar- 

 den, where they know I shall not suspect them of rob- 

 bing the great black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store.* 



* The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one of the 

 sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way -with the 

 most beguiling mockery of distance. 



