The Phoebe at Home 



DAY after day, in the spring, a certain 

 small bird comes at intervals into the 

 top of a half -dead tree near the house, 

 and sits there by the half -hour. It is a demure 

 little figure in blended olive-green and brown, 

 with a large, dark head, and a tail narrowly 

 edged with white. It bears itself soberly, like 

 some dear old Quaker lady in plain rich silk, 

 with touches of lace here and there, like the soft 

 edging of foam that bedecks the summer sea. 

 Sometimes there are two, and they sit very up- 

 right on the cleanest twig, as if they had been 

 trained, as was the good dame I have suggested, 

 in some prim, old-fashioned " seminary," which 

 taught them that the backs of chairs were not 

 for use by the young ; and I hear them calling, 

 sometimes insistently, sometimes carelessly, their 

 name, tswee-zee. That is the true pronuncia- 



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