58 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



tempting greens grow for their eating, and that strange 

 human in the sunbonnet, who coaxes or "shoos" as the 

 notion is upon her, is wasting the best hours of the 

 twenty- four thinking about herself? Look forth from 

 the window and behold a sorry sight, my idle gardener. 

 No wonder the blue jay laughed wildly, the catbird was 

 gleeful with satire, or the woodpecker beat a triumphant 

 tattoo on the trunk of the hollow oak everything abroad 

 has been a living legend of enterprise. 



Even now more sparrows are busy among the radishes 

 and young onions than we thought could be trapped in the 

 neighborhood. Blackbirds and robins together are pull- 

 ing worms in the pansy beds, yet there seems a lurking 

 guilt back of the unconscious posing, and a suspicion that 

 they are spying out the color of ripening cherries on our 

 one treasured tree. Worm pulling may be but a diver- 

 sion to pass the time, and who knows if birds may not take 

 lessons from the handsome bantam rooster which crept 

 under the fence and is making the dirt fly where we sowed 

 the imported seeds from Japan? 



Every plan for striking terror to the heart of the enemy 

 has failed. The fluttering flags, presumed to suggest 

 traps to sparrows, wave among the green like so many 

 signals of peace, and both scarecrows and stuffed owls 

 have come to naught. 



A warbler is perched on the shoulder of the mummied 

 bird of night, singing a joyous lyric, and I verily believe 



