A Sudden Friendship 



BY ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON 



Author of ' Fishin' Jimmy,' etc. 



IT was at Ormond, in Florida, on a summerlike day in February. I 

 was at dinner in the early afternoon, when a friend came in and 

 laid something on the table before me. It was something soft and 

 fluffy and blue — a tiny bird, and seemingly a dead one. It had just been 

 picked up from the floor of the piazza under a window, against the 

 glass of which it had evidently flown. 



It was a Blue Yellow-backed or Parula Warbler, an exquisite little 

 creature. I had never seen one of this species so near, and wished to 

 examine it closely, so I placed the pitiful little body, with its tiny curled- 

 up claws and half-shut, dull eyes under a glass finger-bowl near me 

 and left it there to await my going to my room. A few minutes later 

 as I took the bird in my hands I thought I felt a faint throb of life. I 

 hastened to my room, but before I reached it the little body was quiv- 

 ering and stirring perceptibly. I sat down by my window, holding the 

 bird, and gently smoothing the soft blue feathers. Very soon the eyes 

 brightened, opened wide, and the little beauty raised itself upon its feet 

 and looked up at me. It did not seem frightened, but thinking it was 

 still dazed and half unconscious and would be alarmed at my presence 

 when fully aroused, I put it quickly and gently down upon the sill of the 

 closed, sunshiny window, and left it. I always begin my friendships with 

 what are called the lower creatures by letting them quite alone. It is 

 not a bad method to use with certain higher beings ; but this is irrele- 

 vant. It was a very warm, enervating Florida day, and I had been out 

 all the forenoon, so I threw myself down upon the lounge with a book. 

 But, of course, I kept an eye upon my new acquaintance, and the bird 

 kept its eye upon everything. It tapped the window-panes with its bill, 

 surveyed the landscape without, turning its head from side to side, then 

 looked about the room. From the window-sill it hopped to a table 

 near by and began its investigations, examining with apparent curiosity and 

 interest each object, pecking softly at the books and pictures. Then it 

 threw back his head and looked up at the white ceiling. This was so 

 unlike the blue depths overhead in his old life that it seemed to puzzle 

 him. After a long, curious look, he soared towards it, fluttered near it 

 for a few seconds, then flew to a cornice over the door and perched 

 upon it. There he stayed, like the Raven of poetry, ''just above my 

 chamber door." For a full half hour he rested there, pluming and 

 preening his feathers, sometimes pecking at or tapping the wall with his 

 bill, often, very often, looking across at me as I lay watching him. By 



(94) 



