124 What Birds Have Done With Me 



he knew he could not hear it. He put it into 

 his marching songs and it shortened weary miles 

 a spiritual urge, a voiceless benediction from 

 vividly remembered yesterdays: 



"There's a long, long trail a-winding, 

 Into the land of my dreams, 

 Where the Nightingales are singing, 

 And a white moon beams." 



Not only to marching men, but to the world 

 weary, the lonesome, the man away from home, 

 has the singing of wild birds come with an inspira- 

 tion and an ever-present help in time of need. 

 This story seems to confirm a general belief. A 

 man whom unmerciful disaster followed fast, 

 found himself so beset with difficulties that he 

 made up his mind to go throw himself in a river 

 from a bridge; when he got there, he found a 

 bunch of boys in swimming at the very place where 

 he was going to end it all. Without the least 

 modification of his resolve, he hid himself in some 

 bushes and settled down to wait their departure. 

 Suddenly a brown bird, a Brown Thrasher, in a 

 tree almost over his head began to sing, and the 

 song gripped the soul of him, snatched him out of 

 hell, as he lay there grovelling with his mouth 

 in the dust. City bred, he had never listened to 

 a bird song had the utmost contempt for those 

 who did and now when he could not help him- 



