58 What Birds Have Done With Me 



never saw on earth : unless your memory carries 

 you back to the early days in the wilderness when 

 it still belonged to wild things. Our base-ball, 

 foot-ball, and College field-day become tame af- 

 fairs in comparison to the duck high carnival. 

 Of course, he couldn't see it all quite clearly on 

 account of the flying spray that they scattered to 

 the four points of the compass, but the small boy 

 never doubted that they were playing "I spy," 

 "sheep in the pen," "anty over," and "pullaway"; 

 and the wild screaming joy in the eternal joy of 

 life was never exceeded since the stars sang to- 

 gether at the dawn of Creation. Where all this 

 occurred, there is neither sight nor sound of liv- 

 ing thing to-day. The waters are in uneasy mo- 

 tion, muttering incoherent complaints to the 

 water flags that line the shore, and whispering in 

 lonely places, the forgotten histories of all life's 

 yesterdays. 



Wings, wings, wings, there are yet wings in 

 the upper air and the dimming eyes of age watch 

 them from the same hill-top where the eyes of 

 youth followed them in the long ago. Canadian 

 geese in military precision hurl themselves across 

 the sky, at an altitude where no fowler can do 

 them harm, obedient to the mysterious call of the 

 North. Few and scattered are the flocks com- 

 pared to those that used to go by calling to each 

 other in that hoarse, honking cry, that falls upon 



