THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
started alone for the children, and brought his 
charges safely home. 
But say what we may of high-bred dogs and 
horses, of Jersey and Ayrshire cows, incontrovert- 
ibly most important to our prosperity are the birds. 
I cannot understand why country folk are so gener- 
ally dull on this subject. In a general way they do 
like birds, and for some unexplainable reason they 
especially like the robin, but they know very little 
of the work of the various families, and the nature 
of the various birds that inhabit, with them, their 
homesteads, and they appreciate very imperfectly 
their service. We could afford to pay the birds 
high toll for their music alone, but such music is of 
a scale far too refined for the boor. Nor can such 
a man see that the helpers, who make the world 
habitable for us, must have compensative protec- 
tion and food. The first duty of one who goes 
countryward for a home is to form an alliance with 
just as many tribes of useful birds as possible. You 
will not be able to understand them until you have 
made a careful study of the laws which govern their 
communities and their individual lives. They 
come back to us in the spring in great flocks, and 
from one town center they divide into groups or 
[294] 
