BLUEBIRD JOTTINGS 



Comes vernal sun and gentle rain, 



To nurse the flowers to life again; 



Comes bluer sky and swelling bud; 



Come secret whisp' rings of field and wood; 



While, flowing from out its rust-bro\\Ti throat, 



Comes, sweetest of all, the bluebird's note. 



Blue for beau-u-ty (beauty), blue for from kitchen windows. The Bluebirds 



beaU'U-ty. were not long in finding it but had 



It was a sweet and mellow note that a struggle with the English sparrows 



greeted the ear, and we scanned the fence before securing possession, for those 



posts and the branches of neighboring intolerable pests are so numerous and 



trees in the hope of catching a glimpse of impertinent that they quickly seek to 



the blue herald of the loitering spring- appropriate to their own use any niche or 



tide. crevice wherein a nest may be placed. 



Blue for beau-u-ty, blue for beau-u-ty. After our blue friends had obtained pos- 



In spite of the vanity expressed in his session through the force of might, which 



assertion you can not help loving him, in this case we were glad to see triumph, 



for beautiful indeed he is in his bright the female busied herself for a few days 



azure dress, and he tells you of it so with building the nest. What was our 



sweetly that you entertain no thought of surprise, however, to find the pair, later, 



conceitedness. The flashes of blue from taking great interest in the mail-box close 



his sky-coat, whether seen as he takes his beside the front door. The male was the 



easy swinging flight through the air, or leading spirit in the examination of this 



as he darts to earth to pick up the insect prospective home, and soon persuaded 



which his keen eye has detected, make his mate that it was a desirable place for 



a pretty sight. Then, there is no note the nest. She forthwith began to carry 



from bird-land more pleasing. It is the into the box little wisps of grass, as 



kind of tone one likes to hear from the though fully resolved to build there, 



soprano of the church choir, — clear, mel- Why they forsook the nest so recently 



low, serious, refined, exquisite. Added built in the little house we had put at 



to all his other attractions he possesses their disposal we could not determine 



the qualities of grace, dignity, and clean- with certainty, but our supposition is 



liness. So many are his charms that we that it was because the close floor of 



are almost turned aside by them from their apartment retained the water which 



our real purpose, which is, to write the had driven in at the entrance during a 



simple story of the doings of our birds, hard rain, for we found the nest thor- 



iast season. oughly soaked. Seeing that they were 



This was the first time we had at- so strongly attracted to the mail-box, and 



tempted to cultivate a close familiarity fearing they would not rear a family in 



with the bewitching fellow who "carries so exposed a situation, we hastily fash- 



the sky on his back." We had begun ioned a new box of similar proportions, 



planning very early in the season to at- with opening near the top, and placed it 



tract hini to our neighborhood, and if under the cornice of the veranda, only 



possible, to our dooryard, and had con- a few feet away from the mail-box, clos- 



structed a house of two apartments, with ing the latter so that they could not get 



round openings for entrance, in imi- into it. Within half an hour the birds 



tation of woodpecker holes. When the had taken possession of the new box and 



birds' first notes apprised us of their began at once to build. We could watch 



coming we fastened the little house upon their operations from a near upstairs 



the roof of the coal shed, in full view window, if we but kept out of plain sight, 



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