are welcome. They have rights as well as I; and after these years of 

 farming wherein losses have much outranked my gains, so much so that 

 long since I have ceased to keep accounts because I felt so sad and dis- 

 appointed when I looked at my balance sheet. After these years, I say, 

 I like these marauders. Were they absent, I might raise more (I can 

 not say), but I would enjoy less. I am a hedonist when on my farm. 

 I love to hear the quail's call on a summer afternoon when evening is not 

 far away. His note is so clear, so liquid clear, and his cheer is like peren- 

 nial joy, and when you can give him a playground and house and garden 

 patch in your field for so little cost, and for such cheerful piping, I, for one, 

 love him for a tenant. And the rabbits, with their strange timorous- 

 ness, that seem to dwell in perpetual fear, yet have delight through all 

 their troubles, I love them. To 

 see a rabbit sprawling like a 

 pickaninny in the sun, is to see 

 a life-size picture of content- 

 ment and grace ; and in the 

 summer, when the dogs seem 

 to have their teeth pulled, the 

 rabbit will calm his fear for a 

 moment to look at your com- 

 ing, and the rabbit child no 

 bigger than a country biscuit 

 is so cute as to make me always 

 call him by some pet diminu- 

 tive as 1 do my baby. And 



when they hie them to the thicket where the briers are rabbit barri- 

 cades, their scurry away is like dim laughter, and I like them for 

 tenants too. They may stay without gruff talk from me. I am for the 

 rights of the world. The crow nothing would induce me to part from 

 him. Frankly, I love him, though to the best of my belief, he does not 

 return my affection. I love him and am glad I have woods where he 

 nests in summer, and where he spends his nights in winter with his 

 dusky wings close against his dusky sides and his sagacious eyes asleep. 

 He may do harm, but 1 doubt it ; he does more good than harm. He 

 is friend to the farmer, but we farmers do not always know our friends ; 

 but, friend or foe, I like him. His dudish and impertinent walk, his dis- 

 inclination to have anything to do with me, his stay with us all winter 

 when other birds are mostly gone leaving us alone, his remarks which 



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