262 What Birds Have Done With Me 



tures. Nevertheless, there is one that they have 

 not known. Science has not apprehended the 

 sweep of the Vulture's eye. Instruments for 

 measurement have been wanting, baffling mists in- 

 tervene between the bird in the sky and the thing 

 that he alone sees distinctly. Did you ever care- 

 fully scan the sky from the deck of a ship with a 

 good glass and be unable to find a glimpse of a 

 far off wing, and then cast your bread upon the 

 water and have white-winged things dine upon it 

 before you were out of sight? The sight of the 

 Vulture is presumably first of all, but there is a 

 path that he hath not seen. Here is the poetry 

 hiding behind the fact, the something unknown, 

 the something unseen. 



Nearly a quarter of a century ago at the Maple- 

 wood, on Green Lake, the usual peace and quiet 

 of the place was changed into the wildest commo- 

 tion by the sudden disappearance of the only 

 daughter of the home, a child of four years of 

 age. It was late April and the lawn was green 

 and the Lake sparkling in the sunshine, but it was 

 capable of laughing on in merry glee after swal- 

 lowing tender innocence ; and when she could not 

 be found elsewhere, a thousand hideous appre- 

 hensions all pointed to the Lake. These were 

 dispelled when the shepherd came over the hill 

 beckoning wildly, the lost one both figuratively 

 and literally was safe in the fold. There we 



