BERRY-TIME FELICITIES 159 



said, " My boy, I will give you a fishing-rod." 

 And so he did, and a silk line with it. A 

 boy who could get on without clothes, but 

 must have the wherewithal to go a-fishing, 

 was a boy with a sense of values, a philoso- 

 pher in the bud, and merited encourage- 

 ment. 



While I watched these industrial proces- 

 sions (" Gidap, Charlie ! Gidap ! " says a 

 cheery voice down the road), I listened to 

 the few singers whose morning music could 

 still be counted upon : one or two song 

 sparrows, a field sparrow, an indigo-bird (as 

 true a lover of August as of feathery larch 

 tops), a red-eyed vireo, and a distant hermit 

 thrush. Almost always a score or two of 

 social barn swallows were near by, dotting 

 the telegraph wires, or, if the morning was 

 cold, dropping in bunches of twos and threes 

 into the thick foliage of young elms. In the 

 trees, on the wires, or in the air, they were 

 sure to keep up a comfortable-sounding cho- 

 rus of squeaky twitters. The barn swallow 

 is born a gossip ; or perhaps we should say 

 a talking sage a Socrates, if you will, or 

 a Samuel Johnson. Now and then too 



