204 



By7'ain and Ghopal. 



its bill over an insect, and then droppinsf 

 back to its old position with a jerk of the 

 tail and a flutter of the wings. 



The nest of the pewee, however, is essen- 

 tially woodsey and distinctive. It is an 

 exquisite little structure, saddled on to a 

 lichen-covered limb. It is built of fine 

 roots, delicate stems of grass and seed pods 

 being covered with bits of lichen or moss 

 that are glued on with its own saliva, and 

 make it look like a knob on the branch. It 

 is a shallow little nest, and the four richly 

 crowned creamy eggs, though tiny enough 

 in themselves, leave little room for the body 

 of the brooding mother bird. 



The characters of the two birds also seem 

 to offer a complete contrast. The phoebe is 

 so eminently prosaic and matter-of-fact, that 

 we naturally connect it with the beams of 

 barns and cow sheds ; while the pewee, as- 

 sociated with the cool depths of the forest, 

 is fitted to inspire poets, and to stir the 



deepest chords of human nature with its 

 plaintive, far-reaching voice. 



It has moods for all of ours. Its faint, 

 lisping i^r 



pu-ee 

 suggests all the happiness of domestic love 

 and peace. At one moment its minor 



with the liquidity of a "U" of sound • i J 

 is fraught with all the pathos and yearning 

 of a desolated human heart. At another, its 

 tender, motherly 



r \ r '. ' r 



dear-ie dear-ie dear 



with which it lulls its little ones, is as sooth- 

 ing to the perplexed and burdened soul 

 as the soft breathing of the wind through 

 the pine needles, or the caressing ripple 

 of the sunset-gilded waves of a mountain 

 lake. 



Florence A. Merriam. 



BYRAM AND GHOPAL. 



DHOWLUTPOOR, or the city of the 

 wealthy, as its name implies, had 

 been a very prosperous town in times past, 

 but was now no longer of any great impor- 

 tance. There were not more than eighty 

 or a hundred shops in the Bazaar, and the 

 population did not exceed two thousand; 

 but it was the center of a good farming 

 district, and as the farmers were very heav- 

 ily in debt to the money lenders, and the 

 rate of interest uniformly seventy-five per 

 cent, compound interest, the people had 

 enough to eat and the money lenders were 

 prosperous. Of course the money-lenders 

 never recovered the original debts with all 

 the exorbitant interest. It was more than 

 any people could pay; but in the course of 

 centuries they had found out exactly how 

 much, or rather how little, was enough to 



keep the farmers alive, and they were wise 

 enough not to trench on that little. Indeed, 

 these usurious leeches often enjoy a repu- 

 tation for great liberality, and perhaps they 

 are no worse than the privileged classes 

 in other countries. For the absolute neces- 

 sities of life, a Hindu can always go to his 

 creditors with confidence; they have an in- 

 terest in keeping him alive, but in our 

 Western countries a man's creditors are the 

 last persons he would think of applying to 

 for relief in his necessity. 



To this decayed city of Dhowlutpoor 

 came Byram and Ghopal as the sun went 

 down, and many of the money lenders who 

 were seated under the peepul tree at the 

 entrance to the town greeted Byram as he 

 came within hearing, and inquired of his 

 health; and Byram in his turn inquired 



