scarcely a sound save the sweet, sad note of a tiny bird far away in 

 the elm boughs and another in answer which reverberates through the 

 leafy corridors of the dense forest. Far away in the old deadening 

 where the sun shines so hot you can hear the rat-a-tat-tat of the 

 woodpecker or sap-sucker. A turtle dove coos plaintively from the 

 dead limb and makes you feel so lonesome. The bob-white "raises to 

 whizz to where some other's whistle is." The cat-bird and the jay and 

 the blue-bird and the wren seemed to like our farm. I built little bird 

 houses and set then on poles around our garden fence for the blue-birds 

 and wrens, and year after year they would come back in the Spring 

 time and build a nest in the same place. The little wren always built 

 its nest of twigs so thick and heavy that it could hardly get them 

 through the tiny door. 



I had a mania for hunting and studying the different kinds of bird 

 nests. It was always a marvel to me that each particular family of 

 birds had its own characteristic nest. Instinct seems to guide them in 

 the building of their homes. They never worry over plans and new 

 designs, but accept the fashion as they find it. They have no guess- 

 work about how to live to get the most out of life. They accept the 

 modes and customs of their ancestors and save much time to themselves 

 for sheer enjoyment of life in the very present. They have no past to 

 forget, no future to plan, and work and dread over. They have no 

 long, cold dead languages to pore over, perverting their minds from 

 the joyful present with its wonders in trees and flowers and sounds and 

 sunlight and fresh air. 



No lessons to learn of what to do and how to do, but accept the 

 present and revel in the mere delight of a full and healthy existence in 

 the ways that their Creator laid out for them. Does the quail weary 

 of building her home on the ground under the tuft of grass and pine 

 for a more stately home high among the waving branches? Does the 

 blue-bird envy the red-bird her pretty colors? I sometimes think that 

 the little bird singing from the topmost twig all quivering w r ith melody 

 and life knows a greater happiness than we humans have ever attained. 

 They are fulfilling the place in the universe which was set aside for 

 them in the beginning. Humanity has guessed at ways and means of 

 living and has tried so hard to dodge the issue and has made a 

 jumbled mess of it till no man hardly knows his life work. We box 

 ourselves in between walls and borrow our thoughts from the dead 

 past and call it life. We jam and crowd ourselves into huge cities and 

 pile story on story, shutting out the life-giving sunshine and breathing 

 air into our lungs that would soon sicken the very birds of the forest 

 if they had to inhale it. We pollute our flesh with nicotine, caffeine, 

 tannin, and strong drink, and with this weak, painful, sickly tenement 

 of flesh go about the earth searching for happiness. Restless, indolent, 

 grumbling, fighting, or going to the other extreme in over-work, letting 

 false ambitions warp our lives until we lose the true joys of existence. 

 We pass our fellow men on the highways of life with their roll on their 

 back restlessly wandering, listless, unkempt, bored, no purpose, no 

 will, dragging out an existence that is entirely unknown to any other 

 living thing. The birds have their duties, their nests, their loves and 

 a poise and purpose that should shame our shiftless lives. Who ever 

 heard of a tramp squirrel or homeless bird ? Equanimity, complacency, 



13 



