78 What Birds Have Done With Me 



mirers little short of disgusting. With him, every 

 year is leap year and the drumming is to give 

 notice that he is at home and ready to receive 

 proposals of marriage from eligible spinsters and 

 attractive widows. Love is certainly blind, or no 

 self-respecting female would fall in love with this 

 Jumping-Jack, with a fog-horn attachment. Per- 

 haps they finally marry him to stop his noise, but 

 if such is the case the sacrifice is useless, for the 

 noisy lover makes a noisy husband, just as a 

 drunken lover makes a drunken husband. Much 

 has been written and said against vanity, but 

 seriously it is something of a question if it may 

 not be a virtue masquerading as a vice. Making 

 the most of what has been given you by Mother 

 Nature isn't so bad, always trying to look your 

 best cannot be condemned, and trying to make all 

 the world love you suggests the golden rule in 

 a party dress. If vanity is the detestable vice 

 we have been taught to think it, then it follows as 

 the night the day that Mr. Peacock, Mr. Gobbler 

 and Mr. Ruffed Grouse will prove to be especially 

 bad husbands, but as a matter of fact quite the 

 reverse is the real state of the case. Mr. Gobbler, 

 so prominent and respected on Thanksgiving oc- 

 casions, is a perfect model of conjugal devotion, 

 willingly taking upon himself fully one-half of all 

 domestic duties and such a perfect under-study 

 of his better half that if any calamity happens 



