BETWEEN THE DAYLIGHT AND THE DARK, 



She sat in the deepening twilight 

 awaiting the coming of her lover. The 

 wind whispered in the rustling tree tops, 

 but she heeded it not, though she turned 

 her handsome head sharply when a 

 thoughtless katydid near her sent forth 

 one shrill note. 



"He is late tonight," she murmured 

 softly, as she gave a graceful little shake 

 to her fluffy brown suit and settled her- 

 self anew. Then she bent her beautiful 

 head and gently scratched her ear with 

 her right reversible toe. 



There came no sound of wings, but 

 the branch on which she sat quivered 

 beneath an added weight, and she rolled 

 her round eyes affectionately toward the 

 new comer, a great horned owl, with a 

 welcoming gurgle, in which was a note 

 of expectation. Her lover was a hand- 

 some fellow, with great tufts over his 

 ears, and he had brought a ''gift for his 

 fair," though it was not a dainty box of 

 bonbons produced from his overcoat 

 pocket. He lifts his broad wings, bends 

 his head, and produces from his crop a 

 newly caught frog. His mistress nestles 

 close, with fluttering wings and upturned 

 beak, and receives the great dainty with 

 an evident pleasure which delights him. 

 He tries again. This time the convulsive 

 efifort brings forth to light a field mouse, 

 garnished with two grasshoppers and a 

 black cricket, which his lady receives with 

 the pretty infantile attitudes and flutter- 

 ings which all ladies think so becoming 

 and attractive. Then they snuggle up 

 close together, as is the way of lovers, 

 and sit so still they might have been mis- 

 taken for a pair of stuffed owls — indeed 

 one of them was — save for the occasional 

 turning round of the head in that mc- 

 cliam'cal way affected by owls, for they 

 are watrliful, as all wood creatures have 

 need to be. 



"Whv didst tlion tarry so long, my 

 brave?" she finally nun-nuircd, as she 



fondly toyed with the soft mottled feath- 

 ers on his broad breast. 



He lifted his feathery horns angrily at 

 the remembrance. ''The blue terror 

 caught sight of me as I looked forth from' 

 the beautiful dark home in the dead oak 

 tree which I have selected for thee, my 

 beloved. It was just as the gaudy day- 

 light was giving way to ,the pleasing 

 blackness of night that I came forth, 

 thinking all the little day flyers would 

 have been asleep, but a belated blue jay 

 saw me and, with lifted crest and shrill 

 voice, raised the hue and cry. The robin 

 left his mud daubed nest in the orchard 

 across the road, the titmouse from his 

 home in the knot hole of the rail fence, 

 the nuthatch, the butcher bird and hosts 

 of others all came, with piercing scold- 

 ings, sharp pecks and fluttering wings. 

 I might have gone back into the darkness 

 of our new home and so saved myself 

 further annoyance, but, light of the 

 world," as he rolled his eyes fondly to- 

 ward her, "I wanted not the blue terror 

 to know where thou wouldst lay thine 

 eggs — he is an egg thief, himself, thou 

 knowest — so I sailed away into the open, 

 and, O, the clamor they raised. And see," 

 showing two or three broken feathers, 

 "what the bold blue terror has done, the 

 strong voiced and strong winged blue- 



"How I wish I had been there," mut- 

 tered the lady owl vengefully through her 

 clenched beak. "I would have torn his 

 blue crest from his wicked little head." 



"And 1 would have taken his head 

 along with it, at least as far as that black 

 necklace of which he is so proud, if he 

 had but given me the chance," laughed 

 the owl grimly. "It's my usual way, 

 onl\' there were so many of the light, 

 active little things that when I turned to- 

 ward one another would come at me from 

 the other side, so that my only safetv 

 from annoyance — for that was all they 



