Wings, Wings 53 



home. Ah! those myriad things that came out 

 of the southern sky in the spring and disappeared, 

 always flying north, would they ever come back? 

 It seemed unlikely, and in his soul was the fore- 

 boding fear that the hour drew on apace when 

 his eyes would search the desolation of vast fields 

 of space and find no passing wing. It had been 

 the great flocks, spring and fall especially spring 

 that had taught him his A.B.Cs of migration. 

 The native, home birds that would be gone to- 

 day and back to-morrow with no appearance of 

 ever having been away scarcely suggested it; 

 but the countless millions going by in the light 

 of the sun, often darkening it like a cloud, 

 coming from nowhere, and disappearing into no- 

 where these were the obvious migrants, these 

 the real world voyagers. The wings, the wings, 

 the wings that gave a living thing the emancipa- 

 tion from the earth enjoyed by a cloud, the speed 

 of the wind, and enabled them to traverse high- 

 ways whose only street lamps were the stars, 

 for he heard them going by in the night. 



The living cloud from the sky that had struck 

 him dumb that first spring, had been a vast flock 

 of Passenger Pigeons. Clearly they had no fear 

 of the little tad standing on a hill alone, and 

 swept by, not a dozen feet above his head, with 

 the sound of a rushing, mighty wind ; and both the 

 wind and the sound were real enough, for the 



