198 What Birds Have Done With Me 



her when she first put in an appearance, while she 

 had a stop-over and was just looking around a 

 little. On close inspection the Big Marsh was a 

 trifle flatter than she had supposed, and she 

 preened her left wing and waved her right one as 

 though for immediate flight. It was now or never. 

 Doubtless you are saying he will show her what 

 a swift flyer he is, how fast he can run, how many 

 frogs he can catch in an eight-hour day; perish 

 the thought. 



The crazy jumping-jack knows the way to the 

 feminine heart, the battle is not to the strong, nor 

 the race to the swift, any more certainly than is 

 the dance, the last argument of lovers. Ghost of 

 a cotillion of wooden-horses, minuet of a Hippo- 

 potamus, five-step waltz of a Giraffe and Kanga- 

 roo; S. Hill Crane has you all beaten to a frazzle. 

 However, nothing succeeds like success, and those 

 graceful gyrations of his do the business, and 

 according to the long-established usage of the con- 

 ventional novel, I should merely add: and they 

 married and lived happily ever afterward, but I 

 want to say that he who went forth in the Spring 

 alone, returned in the Fall with joy, bringing a 

 wife and heir with him. 



Life is such a tangled skein, the bitter and sweet 

 co-mingled, before spring the silly sheep had tram- 

 pled the life out of his wife, and the winter wind 

 slammed a door, breaking the neck of his son. 



