BERRY-TIME FELICITIES 159 



said, " My boy, I will give you a fishing-rod." 

 And so lie did, and a silk line with it. A 

 boy who could get on without clothes, but 

 must have the wherewithal to go a-fishing, 

 was a boy with a sense of values, a philoso- 

 pher in the bud, and merited encourage- 

 ment. 



While I watched these industrial proces- 

 sions (" Gidap, Charlie ! Gidap ! " says a 

 cheery voice down the road), I listened to 

 the few singers whose morning music could 

 still be counted upon : one or two song- 

 sparrows, a field sparrow, an indigo-bird (as 

 true a lover of August as of feathery larch 

 tops), a red-eyed vireo, and a distant hermit 

 thrush. Almost always a score or two of 

 social barn swallows were near by, dotting 

 the telegraph wires, or, if the morning was 

 cold, di'opping in bunches of twos and tlu-ees 

 into the thick foliage of young elms. In the 

 trees, on the wires, or in the air, they were 

 sure to keep up a comfortable-sounding cho- 

 rus of squeaky twitters. The barn swallow 

 is born a gossip ; or perhaps we should say 

 a talking sage — a Socrates, if you will, or 

 a Samuel Johnson. Now and then — too 



