PARTING GUESTS 



By Margaret Emerson Bailey 



IN THE Chinese language there is a picture 

 for the word hospitality. Almost any one 

 could guess it. Two quick strokes of the 

 pen in a fork for a biped, a flat stroke above 

 him, the proffered roof. Take the horizontal 

 stroke away and you have mere man, destitute, 

 seeking shelter. Add it, and you stand commit- 

 ted, what you have is his. That that simple 

 act is fraught with responsibilities we discovered 

 when, in a similar attempt to communicate by 

 sign language, we planted vines about our porch. 

 And how lavish we were with our offer, much as 

 if the Chinaman had repeated his symbol down 

 the length of an interminable scroll to catch 

 first, not the understanding, but the eye. At 

 one end it took the form of a pipe vine, its great 

 leaves a flat curtain against the sun. In front 

 rambler roses whose comfortable crotches could 

 not be missed, and over which, to eke out the fo- 

 liage, the akebia twined its delicate five-fingered 

 leaves. At the other end were soft tangles 

 of clematis and a wisteria to furnish stiff support. 

 Was it any wonder that those who flew might 

 read? 



Such an offer we should never have extended 

 to human beings. We live in a churlish fashion 

 back from the road, and talk a great deal of our 

 privacy and the length of our approach. We 

 like people to come when invited. We do not 

 like to have them drop in. But let there be a 

 flicker of an early redbreast and there is a supply 

 of string already cut. In a moment it is strewn 

 about the grass where a quick eye can see it. 

 Let the chipmunk scamper across the lawn: 

 he will hardly have assumed his pauper's atti- 

 tude, have settled himself upon his little haunches, 

 before a handful of grain is under his quivering 

 nostrils. It takes bird or beast to find our man- 

 ners. 



When, then, on our arrival we found a robin 

 installed upon our porch, we at once surrendered 

 ownership. Since she had taken possession 

 of the front door in answer to our invitation, 

 as proper hosts we took the back. There was a 

 magnificence about that act of surrender that 

 should have been attended with a greater pomp. 

 No royal abdication could have wrought more 

 personal inconvenience. Bags, boxes, trunks, 

 were heaped up by an irate expressman who had 

 no patience with such fineness of courtesy, and 

 who refused to manipulate them through the 

 smaller door. It seemed a pity that it should 

 look less like an act of hospitality than an evic- 

 tion. But that day no foot was set upon the 

 porch, and when night came the curtail was 

 drawn early that the light might not shine ; nto 

 the robin's eyes. 



LATER we found that we had acted with an 

 J excess of courtesy. Our guest was quite 

 willing to share her province. Indeed, I think 

 she preferred to, for as she sat spread out above 

 her eggs with the tip of her tail and her shy head 

 showing, she would cast a friendly eye upon me as 

 I passed beneath, quite as though I gave diversion 

 to her patient vigil. Sometimes her mate would 

 scold me as I whisked a broom about the porch, 

 and from his vantage point on the top maple 

 twig would flap his wings and give sharp, testy 

 squawks. But his displeasure seemed to come 

 more from a masculine irritation at my house- 

 cleaning than from any personal dislike. And on 

 the day the eggs were hatched I was surely taken 

 into confidence. There was a tap of the bill, 

 a quick turn of a listening ear, an eye cocked to 

 see if I were watching. Then as I betrayed my 

 eagerness, the mother would settle to her task 

 again with an upward tilt of the beak that was 

 sure reproof to my mere spinster's patience. 



But after that day she had little time for me 

 in the midst of her flurried trips. Her mate, 

 with whom I now made acquaintance, was 

 far more formal. His advance was methodical, 

 made in calculated stages. Three hops up the 

 steps, the flick of the tail, and a flutter to the 

 chair back. Then a quick dart to the nest, and 



(Continued on fig' **) 



