252 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



and again the thin, treble tweetering of a 

 warbler. He's right good at everything he 

 tackles. But in the last day or two I've been 

 growing suspicious of him. He's so incredibly 

 clever with his imitations; his repertory is so 

 utterly inexhaustible. I'm beginning to be- 

 lieve that most of the time he isn't mocking 

 at all, as he pretends, but is just romancing 

 just making it up as he goes along giving us 

 a few genuine imitations and then sticking in a 

 lot of stuff of his own and trying to make us 

 take it as "something just as good." 



Query: Would that be cheating? Or 

 would it? The question has set me to wonder- 

 ing. There are some folks who, if they could 

 really prove it on him, would feel a sense of 

 disappointment. Since he poses as a mocker, 

 they'd want him to mock and mock and do 

 nothing else. They'd be for denying him the 

 right to any least flicker of originality. Are 

 they right? Or are they cheating themselves 

 in failing to take him as he is and make the 

 best of him? 



I shouldn't wonder if we see a lot of our 

 clever planning on the farm go wrong simply 

 because we want everything to bend to our no- 

 tions and aren't willing to surrender our no- 



