NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 



blue backs and ruddy throats glancing in the sun, 

 and their gentle, unctuous wing gossip falling on our 

 ears. Their coarse nests mud without, but feath 

 ers within were plastered on the rafters in the 

 peak, and when the young were out we saw them 

 perched in a row on the ridge-board, resting from 

 their first flights. 



Now, as I sit within my barn-door outlook, the 

 same swallows are playing before me, untouched by 

 the many long years that have passed, giving the 

 impression of perpetual youth; the same tender, 

 confiding calls, the same darting, wayward flight, 

 the same swift coursings above the shorn meadows; 

 darlings of the ripe summer air, aerial feeders, 

 reaping an invisible bounty above us, touching the 

 earth in quest of a straw or a feather, or for clay 

 for the nest, tireless of wing, and impotent of foot, 

 as of old. 



The swallow has two words, one for her friends, 

 and one for her foes, "Wit, wit, wit," uttered so 

 confidingly for the friends, and "Sleet, sleet, sleet," 

 uttered sharply for the foes. 



Instead of the ridge-board of my youth, the swal- 

 low now has a new perch, the telephone and tele- 

 graph wires strung along the highway. 



Shall we look upon the swallow as a songster? 

 Virgil refers to him as such, and when he perches 

 upon the telephone-wire in front of my barn-door 

 and fills and refills his mouth with a succession of 



