1^8 What Birds Have Done With Me 



the one who had carried it on was himself a 

 pn'soner on the same veranda, not in a cage but a 

 wheel chair, contrary beyond question but not so 

 much so as he might have been had it not been 

 for the flittering ghost of Mr. Esau acting as a 

 horrible example. Grosbeaks are shy birds of 

 the tree-tops, who reverse the conduct of good 

 little boys by being more often heard than seen, 

 so it becomes difficult to imagine my surprise to 

 have one come into the ornamental wood-work 

 at the top of the veranda; and here follows the 

 proof that they had not forgotten the poor cap- 

 tive of the preceding year; a maid brought out a 

 canary and hung the cage under the veranda and 

 coming from nowhere almost instantly, there was 

 a Grosbeak on it clearly looking for Mr. Esau. 

 Singly it seemed as though each Grosbeak visited 

 the cage once only and there were no kisses at 

 parting. Dickey was to them no yellow peril and 

 there was neither race war nor affection between 

 them, only the Alps of an impassable indiffer- 

 ence. Coming back to my own "vine and fig tree" 

 from a hospital that for me had been down close 

 by the gates of death, it is impossible for me to 

 make any one understand how much the Gros- 

 beaks did for me when it became evident that 

 among humans I was the one to be trusted. All 

 that Spring, always excepting Chickadees, no other 

 birds had ever been so intimate, almost confiden- 



