159 THE BIRDS OF BATTLE GROVE. 
sic, nor was there need of a gramophone then. In the 
autumn of that year—late and snowy—two little birds of 
the sparrow or chippy kind—crept through a knot hole 
inthe eaves. In fair days all winter long they sat and 
chirped on the sunny side of the office roof. The next 
winter there were four. The next six and the fourth 
winter they seemed to have divided up as part of them 
to quarters in the court house tower. Down near the 
county jail facing the river a prairie hen built her nest, 
hatched out a brood of chickens, and not even a wan- 
dering cat disturbed the confiding hen and chicks. But 
human cats were watching. The first day that the laws 
of man allowed their killing—they were surprised in a 
bug hunting expedition just north of the village school 
house by a hunter—and all killed but one. That one 
flew in terror into the open door of the print shop annex 
where the Leader scribe had sleeping quarters, and ran 
under the bed. When given plenty of rest it was taken 
out reluctantly from its hiding place and given its free- 
dom. It flew down by the jail and beyond. Of its 
after fate I know nothing. 
The birds of Battle Grove continued to reappear in 
or about their old nesting grounds with regularity every 
spring time. Timber being plentiful and the inhabitants 
of the village on the plain few, so there was no neces- 
sity and but little desire for any one in those days to 
disturb the haunts of the birds. True—now and then 
a tree was felled there for fire wood or fencing, but dis- 
appearance of the primeval forest trees were not noticed 
except by careful observers or by the birds themselves. 
On one we!l remembered time when the Juneberries 
were turning to the red, I strolled through the bad lands 
