26 The Changeful Skies 



bank like a great snow-drift." Let heartless 

 fashion demand a feather, and the death-war- 

 rant of thousands of birds is signed. Here 

 and there a protesting voice may be raised, 

 but only to be drowned in the sneers of an 

 indifferent people. I once was foolish enough 

 to speak of the rights of a rambler to the wild 

 life left about us, and was met with ridicule. 

 " I've got to praftise on swallows to learn to 

 shoot quick," was my interlocutor's reply. 

 My summer sky must be cleared of its swal- 

 lows, it seems, to meet the useless skill of a 

 brute neighbor ! How I rejoiced when his 

 gun burst ! 



There is a world of suggestiveness in the 

 words just used, "my summer skies." 

 Therein lies ownership of a wholly satis- 

 factory kind. They are mine without cost, 

 without even the asking, and, better still, 

 without depriving others, mine, yours, the 

 common wealth of all ; and yet few, it ap- 

 pears, place any value upon them. To many 

 they are of as little importance as the frame 

 of a picture; yet often they are the real 

 pifture and the earth is but the naked plat- 

 form upon which we stand to view it. It is 

 hard to find a fitting phrase for many a pano- 



