THE CURLEW CALL 165 
underneath its invitational shadow and leaned 
against its bole. The morning though early 
was hot and shadow a mercy to be desired. 
There I sat, the gladness of June around me, 
the sky lifting its Sabbath dome above me solemn, 
serene, exultant, and full of God. There I sat 
happy guest of the shadowing tree and exultant 
sky and the kind, good God. My Bible open 
before me, spake of holy and high things. My 
heart was in a mood of worship as my heart 
ought always to be. I heard a robin singing 
near at hand in bubbly melody. I heard a quail 
call across the pasture from a field of corn just 
high enough to toy with the wind as it passed 
by. God has not many bird-voices which charm 
and cheer me more than the bob-white call, 
so liquid, so full of content and so far carrying, 
and sweet as the ripple of water, so in keeping 
with his trig form garmented so faultlessly in his 
spotless garb of spotted brown, so swift of whirring 
wings in suddenness of improvised flight, so unim- 
migrant an inhabitant of our summer and winter, 
so good a friend of the crops of wheat and corn 
and the farmer, who so seldom knows the philan- 
thropist the quail is—and to hear his flute-note 
come over the pasture full of spring and summer 
merriment! It is a healing of the heart to hear 
this bonny songster make merry with the golden 
day. Once I saw him on a distant fence post 
exulting in his Sunday song and I exulting in it 
more than he. A whole day of Sabbath joy was 
