Chapter XXVI: Solitary the Thrush 259 (3)

Eastward was my next trip, down toward the brook that made a valley between Greylock and Ragged Mountain. My path was under the edge of the woods that fringed a mountain stream. Not the smallest of the debt we owe the bonny brook is that it wears a deep gully, whose precipitous sides are clothed with a thick growth of waving trees--beech, white and black birches, maple, and chestnut--in refreshing and delightful confusion. The stream babbled and murmured at my side as I walked slowly down, peering in every bush for nests, and at last I parted the branches like a curtain and stepped within. It was a cool green solitude, a shrine, one of nature's most enchanting nooks, sacred to dreams and birds and--woodchucks, one of which sat straight up and looked solemnly at me out of his great brown eyes.

I sat on the low-growing limb of a tree, and was rocked by the wind outside. I forgot my object. What did it matter that I should find my bluejay? Was it worth while to go on? Was anything worth while, indeed, except to dream and muse, lulled by the music of the "laughing water"? Ah! if one were a poet!

Then the birds came. A cat-bird first, with witching low song, eying me closely with that calm, dark eye of his, the while he poured it out from a shrub,

"Like dripping water falling slow
Round mossy rooks, in music rare;"

a vireo, repeating over and over his few notes in tireless warble; high up in the maple across the chasm, a sweet-voiced goldfinch singing his soul away outside; and lastly, a robin, who broke the charm by a peremptory demand to know my business in his private quarters. I rose to leave him in possession. In rising I disturbed another resident, a red squirrel, who ran out on a branch and delivered as vehement a piece of mind as I ever heard, stamping his little feet and jerking his bushy tail with every word, scolding all over, to the tip of his longest hair.

I left them in their green paradise. I went to my room. I sat down in my rocker to consider.

Then the winds got up. Through the "bellows pipe," as they suggestively call the head of the valley, there poured such a gale that the birds could hardly hold on to their perches. All day long it tossed the branches, tore off leaves, beat the birds, rattled the windows, and filled the blue cover to our green bowl of a valley with clouds, even half way down the sides of the mountains themselves. And at last they began to weep, and I spent my twilight by an open window, wrapped in a shawl, listening to the

"Unrivaled one, the hermit-thrush,
Solitary, singing in the west,"

and looking out upon the hills, where I still hoped to find my bluejay.

VII.

IN THE WOOD LOT.

"There's blue jays a-plenty up in the wood lot," said the farmer's boy, hearing me lament my unsuccessful search for that wily bird. "There's one pair makes an awful fuss every time I passes."

I immediately offered to accompany the youth on his next trip up the mountain, where he was engaged in dragging down to our level, sunshine and summer breezes, winter winds and pure mountain air, in the shape of the bodies of trees, whose noble heads were laid low by the axes last winter. One hundred and fifty cords of beauty, the slow work of unnumbered years, brought down to "what base uses"! the most beautiful of nature's productions degraded to the lowest service--to fry our bacon and bake our pies!

The farmer did not look upon it exactly in that way; he called it "cord-wood," and his oxen dragged it down day by day. The point of view makes such a difference!

The road that wound down through the valley, skirting its hills, bridging its brooks, and connecting the lonely homestead with the rest of the human world, had on one side a beautiful border of all sorts of greeneries, just as Nature, with her inimitable touch, had placed them. It was a home and a cover for small birds; it was a shade on a warm day; it was a delight to the eye at all times. Yet in the farmer's eye it was "shiftless" (the New Englander's bogy). The other side of the road he had "improved;" it gloried in what looked at a little distance like a single-file procession of glaring new posts, which on approaching were found to be the supports of one of man's neighborly devices--barbed wire. Rejoicing in this work of his hands on the left, he longed to turn his murderous weapons against the right side. He was labored with; he bided his time; but I knew in my heart that whoever went there next summer would find that picturesque road bristling with barbed wire on both sides. It will be as ugly as man can make it, but it will be "tidy" (New England's shibboleth), for no sweet green thing will grow up beside it. Nature doesn't take kindly to barbed wire.

The old stone wall at that time was an irresistible invitation to the riotous luxuriance of vines. Elder-bushes, with their fine cream-colored blossoms, hung lovingly over it; blackberry bushes, lovely from their snowy flowering to their rich autumn foliage, flourished beside it; and a thousand and one exquisite, and to me nameless, green things hung upon it, and leaned against it, and nearly covered it up. And what a garden of delight nestled in each protected corner of an old-fashioned zigzag fence! Yet all these are under the ban--"shiftless."

Thanks be to the gods who sowed this country so full of stones and trees, that the army of farmers who have worried the land haven't succeeded in turning it into the abomination of desolation they admire!

And now, having relieved my mind, I'll go on with the bluejay hunt.

The next morning it was, for a rarity, fine. I started up the wood road ahead of my guide, so that I might take my climb as easily as such a thing can be taken. Passing through the bare pasture, I entered the outlying clumps of spruce which form the advance-guard of the forests on Greylock, and here my leader overtook me, urging his fiery steeds, with their empty sled. Now horned beasts have had a certain terror for me ever since an exciting experience with them in my childhood. I stood respectfully on one side, prepared to fly should the "critters" (local) show malicious intent. On they came, looking at me sharply with wicked eyes. I made ready for a rush, when, lo! they turned from me, and dashed madly into a spruce-tree, nearly upsetting themselves, and threatening to run away. We were all afraid of each other.

The mortified driver apologized for their behavior on the ground that "they ain't much used to seeing a lady up in the wood lot." I generously forgave them, and then meekly followed in their footsteps, up, up, up toward the clouds, till we reached the bluejay neighborhood. Here we parted. My escort passed on still higher, and I seated myself to see at last my bluejays.

Dead silence around me. Not a leaf stirred; not a bird peeped. I began to make a noise myself--calls and imitations (feeble) of bird-notes to arouse their curiosity; a bluejay is a born investigator. No sign of heaven's color appeared except in the patches of sky between the leaves.

Other wood dwellers came; a rose-breasted grosbeak, with lovely rosy shield, with much posturing and many sharp "clicks," essayed to find out what manner of irreverent intruder this might be. Later his modest gray-clad spouse joined him. They circled around to view the wonder on all sides. They exchanged dubious-sounding opinions. They were as little "used to seeing a lady" as the oxen. They slipped away, and in a moment I heard his rich song from afar.

No one else paid the slightest attention to my coaxing, and I returned by easy stages to the spruces, where I had the misfortune to arouse the suspicion of a robin. Do you know what it is to be under robin surveillance? Let but one redbreast take it into his obstinate little head that you are a suspicious character, and he mounts the nearest tree--the very top twig, in plain sight--and begins his loud "Peep! peep! tut, tut, tut! Peep! peep! tut, tut, tut!"

This is his tocsin of war, and soon his allies appear, and then

"From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,
Woodland, wheat field, corn field, clover,
Over and over, and over and over,
Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,
Nothing but robin-calls heard under heaven."

No matter what you do or what you don't do. One will perch on each side of you, and join the maddening chorus, driving every bird in the neighborhood either to join in the hue and cry (as do some of the sparrows), or to hide himself from the monster that has been discovered.

I tried to tire them out by sitting absolutely motionless; but three, who evidently had business in the vicinity, for each held a mouthful of worms, guarded me to right and left and in front, and never ceased their offensive remarks long enough to stuff those worms into the mouths waiting for them.

I was not able to convince them that I had no designs on robin households, and I had to own myself defeated again. Then and there I abandoned the search for the bluejay.

VIII.

THE BLUEJAY BABY.

My time of triumph came, however, a little later. Birds may securely hide their nests, but they cannot always silence their nestlings. So soon as little folk find their voices, whether their dress be feathers, or furs, or French cambric, they are sure to make themselves heard and seen.

One morning, two or three weeks after I had given up the bluejay search, and consoled myself with looking after baby cat-birds and thrushes, I started out as usual for a walk. I turned naturally into a favorite path beside a brook that danced down the mountain below the house. It was near the bottom of a deep gully, where I had come to grief in my search for a veery baby.

As I passed slowly up, looking well to my steps, and listening for birds, I heard a note that aroused me at once,--the squawk of a bluejay. It came from the higher ground, and I looked about for a pathway up the steep bank on my right. At the most promising point I could select I started my climb. Unfortunately that very spot had been already chosen by a small rill, a mere trickle of water, to come down. It was not big enough to make itself a channel and keep to it, but it sprawled all over the land. Now it lingered in the cows' footprints and made a little round pool of each; then it loitered on a level bit of ground, and soaked it full; when it reached a comfortable bed between the roots of trees, it almost decided to stay and be a pond, and it dallied so long before it found a tiny opening and straggled out, that if it did not result in a pond, it did accomplish a treacherous quagmire. In fact that undecided, feeble-minded streamlet totally "demoralized" the whole hillside, and with its vagaries I had to contend at every step of my way.

I reached the top, but I left deep footprints to be turned into pools of a new pattern, and as trophy I carried away some of the soil on my dress. Of my shoes I will not speak; shall we not have souls above shoe-leather?

As soon as I recovered breath after my hasty scramble to dry ground, I started toward a thick-growing belt of spruce trees which came down from the mountain and ended in a point,--one tree in advance, like the leader of an army. Here I found the bird I was seeking, a much disturbed bluejay, who met me at the door--so to speak--with a defiant squawk, a warning to come no nearer.

"Ah ha!" said I, exultingly, "are your little folk in there? Then I shall see them."

I slowly advanced; she disputed my passage at every step, but nothing was to be seen till her anxiety got the better of her discretion and she herself gave me the precious secret; she suddenly slipped through the trees to the other side, and became perfectly silent.

I could not follow her path through the tangle of trees, but I could go around, and I did. On a dead spruce wedged in among the living ones I saw the object of her solicitude; a lovely sight it was! Two young bluejays huddled close together on a twig. They were "humped up," with heads drawn down into their shoulders, and breast feathers fluffed out like snowy-white floss silk, completely covering their feet and the perch. No wonder that poor little mother was anxious, for a more beautiful pair I never saw, and to see them was to long to take them in one's hands.

Silent and patient little fellows they appeared, looking at me with innocent eyes, but showing no fear. They were a good deal more concerned about something to eat, and when their mother came they reminded her by a low peep that they were still there. She gave them nothing; she was too anxious to get them out of my sight, and she disappeared behind a thick branch.

In a moment I heard the cry of a bird I could not see. So also did the twins on the tree, and to them it meant somebody being fed; they lifted their little wings, spread out like fans their short beautiful tails, and by help of both, half hopped, half flew through the branches to the other side.

I followed, by the roundabout way again, and then I saw another one. Three bonny bairns in blue were on that dead spruce tree; two close together as before, and the third--who seemed more lively--sitting alone. He lifted his crest a little, turned his head and looked squarely at me, but seeing nothing to alarm him--wise little jay!--did not move. Then again mamma came forward, and remonstrated and protested, but only by her one argument, a squawk.

I quietly sat down and tried to make myself as much a part of the bank as possible, for I wanted the distracted dame in blue to go on with her household duties, and feed those babies. After a while she did calm down a little, though she kept one distrustful eye on me, and now and then came near and delivered a squawk at me, as if to assure me that she saw through my manoeuvres, and despised them.

But I cared not at that moment for her opinion of me; she did not move my sympathies as do many birds, for she appeared insulted and angry, not in the least afraid. I wanted to see her feed, and at last I did--_almost_; she was to the last too sharp for me.

She came with a mouthful of food. Each one of the three rose on his sturdy little legs, fluttered his wings, opened his beak and cried. It was a sort of whispered squawk, which shows that the bluejay is a wary bird even in the cradle. When they were all roused and eager, the mother used that morsel as a bait to coax them through the tree again. She did not give it to either of her petitioners, but she moved slowly from branch to branch, holding it before them, and as one bird they followed, led by their appetite, like bigger folk,--

"Three souls with but a single thought,
Three hearts that beat as one!"

and as I had no desire to see them die of starvation, and leave the world so much poorer in beauty, I came away and left them to their repast.

That was not the end of the bluejay episode. A few days later a young bird, perhaps one of this very trio, set out by himself in search of adventures. Into the wide-open door of the barn he flew, probably to see for what the swallows were flying out and in. Alas for that curious young bird! He was noticed by the farmer's boy, chased into a corner, still out of breath from his first flight, then caught, thrust into an old canary cage, brought to the house, and given to the bird-student.

Poor little creature! he was dumb with fright, though he was not motionless. He beat himself against the wires and thrust his beak through the openings, in vain efforts to escape. We looked at him with great interest, but we had not the heart to keep him very long. In a few minutes he was taken out of the cage in a hand (which he tried to bite), carried to the door and set free.

Away like a flash went the little boy blue and alighted in a tree beside the house. For a few moments he panted for breath, and then he opened his mouth to tell the news to whom it might concern. In rapid succession he uttered half a dozen jay-baby squawks, rested a moment, then repeated them, hopping about the tree in great excitement.

In less than thirty seconds his cries were answered. A bluejay appeared on the barn; another was seen in a spruce close by; three came to a tall tree across the road; and from near and far we heard the calls of friends trooping to the rescue.

Meanwhile the birds of the neighborhood, where the squawk of a jay was seldom heard, began to take an interest in this unusual gathering. Two cedar birds, with the policy of peace which their Quaker garb suggests, betook themselves to a safe distance, a cat-bird went to the tree to interview the clamorous stranger, a vireo made its appearance on the branches, and followed the big baby in blue from perch to perch, looking at him with great curiosity, while a veery uttered his plaintive cry from the fence below.

All this attention was too much for a bluejay, who always wants plenty of elbow room in this wide world. He flew off towards the woods, where, after a proper interval to see that no more babies were in trouble, he was followed by his grown-up relatives from every quarter. But I think they had a convention to talk it over, up in the woods, for squawks and cries of many kinds came from that direction for a long time.

IN THE BLACK RIVER COUNTRY.

Where shall we keep the holiday?

Up and away! where haughty woods
Front the liberated floods:
We will climb the broad-backed hills,
Hear the uproar of their joy;
We will mark the leaps and gleams
Of the new-delivered streams,
And the murmuring river of sap
Mount in the pipes of the trees.

And the colors of joy in the bird
And the love in his carol heard.
Frog and lizard in holiday coats,
And turtle brave in his golden spots.

EMERSON.

IX.

THAT WITCHING SONG.

A year or two before setting up my tent in the Black River Country, began my acquaintance with the author of the witching song.

The time was evening; the place, the veranda of a friend's summer cottage at Lake George. The vireo and the redstart had ceased their songs; the cat-bird had flirted "good-night" from the fence; even the robin, last of all to go to bed, had uttered his final peep and vanished from sight and hearing; the sun had gone down behind the mountains across the lake, and I was listening for the whippoorwill who lived at the edge of the wood to take up the burden of song and carry it into the night.

Suddenly there burst upon the silence a song that startled me. It was loud and distinct as if very near, yet it had the spirit and the echoes of the woods in it; a wild, rare, thrilling strain, the woods themselves made vocal. Such it seemed to me. I was strangely moved, and filled from that moment with an undying determination to trace that witching song to the bird that could utter it.

"I'm going to seek my singer," was the message I flung back next morning, as, opera-glass in hand, I started down the orchard towards the woods. I followed the path under the apple-trees, passed the daisy field, white from fence to fence with beauty,--despair of the farmer, but delight of the cottagers,--hurried across the pasture beyond, skirting the little knoll on which the cow happened this morning to be feeding, crossed the brook on a plank, and reached my daily walk.

This was a broad path that ran for half a mile on the edge of the lake. Behind it, penetrated every now and then by a foot-path, was the bit of old woods that the clearers of this land had the grace to leave, to charm the eye and refresh the soul (though probably not for that reason). Before it stretched the clear, sparkling waters of Lake George, and on the other side rose abruptly one of the beautiful mountains that fringe that exquisite piece of water.

Usually I passed half the morning here, seated on one of the rocks that cropped out everywhere, filling my memory with pictures to take home with me. But to-day I could not stay. I entered one of the paths, passed into the grand, silent woods, found a comfortable seat on a bed of pine needles, with the trunk of a tall maple tree for a back, and prepared to wait. I would test Thoreau's assertion that if one will sit long enough in some attractive spot in the woods, sooner or later every inhabitant of it will pass before him. I had confidence in Thoreau's woodcraft, for has not Emerson said:--

"What others did at distance hear,
And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
Was shown to this philosopher,
And at his bidding seemed to come"?

and I resolved to sit there till I should see my bird. I was confident I should know him: a wild, fearless eye, I was sure, a noble bearing, a dweller on the tree-tops.

Alas! I forgot one phrase in Thoreau's statement: "sooner or _later_." No doubt the Concord hermit was a true prophet; but how many of the inhabitants are "later"--too late, indeed, for a mortal who, unlike our New England philosopher, has such weak human needs as food and rest, and whose back will be tired in spite of her enthusiasm, if she sits a few hours on a rock, with a tree for a back.

Many of the sweet and shy residents of that lovely bit of wildness showed themselves while I waited. A flicker, whose open door was in sight, and who was plainly engaged in setting her house in order, entertained me for a long time. Silently she stole in, I did not see how. Her first appearance to me was on the trunk, the opposite side from her nest, whence she slid, or so it looked, in a series of jerks to her door, paused a few minutes on the step to look sharply at me, and then disappeared, head first, within. Quick as a jack-in-the-box, her head popped out again to see if the spy had moved while she had been out of sight, and finding all serene, she threw herself with true feminine energy into her work. The beak-loads she brought to the door and flung out seemed so insufficient that I longed to lend her a broom; but I found she had a better helper than that, a partner.

When she tired, or thought she had earned a rest, she came out, and flying to the limb above the nest, began softly calling. Never was the ventriloquial quality more plainly exhibited. I heard that low "ka! ka! ka! ka! ka!" long repeated, and I looked with interest in every direction to see the bird appear. For a long time I did not suspect the sly dame so quietly resting on the branch, and when I did it was only by the closest inspection that I discovered the slight jerk of the tail, the almost imperceptible movement of the beak, that betrayed her.

Another as well as I heard that call, and he responded. He was exactly like her, with the addition of a pair of black "mustachios," and it may be she told him that the strange object under the maple had not moved for half an hour, and was undoubtedly some new device of man's, made of wood perhaps, for he did not hesitate on the door-step, but plunged in at once, and devoted himself to the business in hand, clearing out, while she vanished.

But though I watched this domestic scene with pleasure, and saw and noted every feather that appeared about me, the tree-tops had my closest attention, for there I was certain I should find my rare singer. Hours passed, the shadows grew long, and sadly and slowly I took my way homewards, wishing I had a charm against fatigue, mosquitoes, and other terrors of the night, and could stay out till he came.

All through the month of June I haunted that wood, seeking the unknown. Every evening I heard him, but no sight came to gladden my eyes. I grew almost to believe it merely "a wandering voice," and I went home with my longing unsatisfied.

When next the month of roses came around, I betook myself to a spur of the Hoosac Mountains to see my birds. The evening of my arrival, as the twilight gathered, rose the call of my witching voice.

"What bird is that?" I demanded, with the usual result; no one knew. (A chapter might be written on the ignorance of country people of their own birds and plants. A chapter, did I say? A book, a dozen books, the country is full of material.)

"I shall find that bird," I said, "if I stay a year." In the morning I set out. The song had come from the belt of trees that hang lovingly over a little stream on its merry way down the mountain, and thither I turned my steps. Now, my hostess had a drove of twenty cows, wild, head-tossing creatures,--"Holsteins" they were,--and having half a dozen pastures, they were changed about from day to day. Driving them every morning was almost as exciting as the stampede of a drove of horses, and it seemed as if they could never reconcile themselves to the idiosyncrasies of the American woman. The pasture where they were shut for the day was as sacred from my foot as if it were filled with mad dogs. My mere appearance near the fence was a signal for a headlong race to the spot to see what on earth I was doing now.

I went into the field, looking cautiously about, and satisfying myself that the too curious foreigners were not within sight, found a comfortable seat on a bank overlooking the whole beautiful view of the brook and its waving green borders, and commanding the approach to my side of the field.

This time again my mysterious singer proved to be among the "later" ones, and after spending an hour or two there, I rose to go back, when in passing a thick-growing evergreen tree, I saw that I had created a panic. There was a flutter of wings, there were cries, and on the tree, in plain sight, the towhee bunting and his brown-clad spouse. Of course there must be some reason for this reckless display; I sought the cause, and found a nest, a mere depression in the ground, and one sorry-looking youngster, the sole survivor of the perils of the situation. Over that one nestling they were as concerned as the proverbial hen with one chicken, and they flitted about in distress while I looked at their half-fledged bantling, and hoped it was a singer to ring the delightful silver-toned tremolo that had charmed me that morning.

That evening, listening on the piazza to the usual twilight chorus, the wood-thrush far-off, the towhee from the pasture, the robins all around, I heard suddenly the "quee-o" of a bird I knew, so near that I started, and my eyes fell directly upon him, standing on the lowest limb of a dead tree, not ten feet from me.

He was so near I did not need my glass, nor indeed did I dare move a finger, lest he take flight. Several times he uttered his soft call, and then, while my eyes were fastened upon him, he began quivering with excitement, his wings lifted a little, and in a clear though low tone he uttered the long-sought song. I held my breath, and he repeated it, each time lower than before. Even at that distance it sounded far off, and doubtless many times in the woods, when I looked for it afar, it may have been over my head.

A long time--how long I cannot guess--that beautiful bird sat and sang his witching evening hymn, while I listened spellbound.

It was the tawny thrush,--the veery.

X.

THE VEERY MOTHER.

My next interview with the veery family took place the following June, at the foot of Mount Greylock, in Massachusetts. I had just returned from a walk down the meadow, put on wrapper and slippers, and established myself by the window to write some letters. Pen, ink, paper, and all the accessories were spread out before me. I dipped my pen in the ink and wrote "My Dear," when a sound fell upon my ears: it was the cry of a young bird! it was new to me! it had a veery ring!

Away went my good resolutions, and my pen with them; papers flew to right and left; hither and thither scattered the letters I had meant to answer. I snatched my glass, seized my hat as I passed, and was outdoors. In the open air the call sounded louder, and plainly came from the borders of the brook that with its fringe of trees divides the yard from the pasture beyond. It was a two-syllabled utterance like "quee wee," but it had the intermitted or tremolo sound that distinguishes the song of the tawny thrush from others. I could locate the bird almost to a twig, but nobody cared if I could. It was on the other side of the brook and the deep gully through which it ran, and they who had that youngster in charge could laugh at me.

But I knew the way up the brookside. I went down the road to the bars, crossed the water on stepping-stones, and in a few minutes entered a cow-path that wandered up beside the stream. All was quiet; the young thrush no doubt had been hushed. They were waiting for me to pass by, as I often did, for that was a common walk of mine. On this log I sat one day to watch a woodchuck; a little further on was the rock from which I had peeped into a robin's nest, where one egg had been alone a week, and I never saw a robin near it.

At length I reached the path that ran up the bank where I usually turned and went to the pasture, for beyond this the cow-path descended, and looked damp and wild, as if it might once have been the way of the cows, but now was abandoned. Still all was quiet, and I thought of my letters unanswered, of my slippers, and--and I turned to go back.

Just at that moment that unlucky young thrush opened his mouth for a cry; the birds had been too sure. I forgot my letters again, and looked at the path beyond. I thought I could see a dry way, so I took a step or two forward. This was too much! this I had never before done, and I believe those birds were well used to my habits, for the moment I passed my usual bounds a cry rang out, loud, and a bird flew past my head. She alighted near me. It was a tawny thrush; and when one of those shy birds, who fly if I turn my head behind the blinds, gets bold, there's a good reason for it. I thanked madam for giving me my cue; I knew now it was her baby, and I walked slowly on.

I had to go slowly, for the placing of each foot required study. It is surprising what a quantity of water will stand on the steep sides of a mountain. Some parts of this one were like a marsh, or a saturated sponge, and everywhere a cow had stepped was a small pool. As I proceeded the thrush grew more and more uneasy. She came so near me that I saw she had a gauzy-winged fly in her mouth, another proof that she had young ones near. She called, without opening her beak, her usual low "quee."

Finding a dry spot, and the baby-cry having ceased, I sat down to consider and to wait. Then the bird seemed suddenly to remember how compromising her mouthful was, and she planted herself on a branch before my eyes, deliberately ate that fly and wiped her beak, as who should say, "You thought I was carrying that morsel to somebody, but you see I have eaten it myself; there's nothing up that path." But much as I respected the dear mother, I did not believe her eloquent demonstration. I selected another point where I could stop a minute, and picked my way to it. Then all my poor little bird's philosophy deserted her; she came close to me, she uttered the greatest variety of cries; she almost begged me to believe that she was the only living creature up that gully. And so much did she move me, so intolerably brutal did she make me feel, that for the second time I was very near to turning back.

But the cry began again. How could I miss so good a chance to see that tawny youngster, when I knew I should not lay finger on it? I hardened my heart, and struggled a few feet further.

Then some of the neighbors came to see what was the trouble, and if they could do anything about it. A black-and-white creeper rose from a low bush with a surprised "chit-it-it-it," alighted on a tree and ran glibly up the upright branch as though it were a ladder. But a glance at the "cause of all this woe" was more than his courage could endure; one cry escaped him, and then a streak of black and white passed over the road out of sight.

Next came a redstart, himself the head of a family, for he too had his beak full of provisions. He was not in the least dismayed; he perched on a twig and looked over at me with interest, as if trying to see what the veery found so terrifying, and then continued on his way home. A snow-bird was the last visitor, and he came nearer and nearer, not at all frightened, merely curious, but madam evidently distrusted him, for she flew at him, intimating in a way that he plainly understood that "his room was better than his company."

Still I floundered on, and now the disturbed mother added a new cry, like the bleating of a lamb. I never should have suspected a bird of making that sound; it was a perfect "ba-ha-ha." Yet on listening closely, I saw that it was the very tremolo that gives the song of the male its peculiar thrill. Her "ba-ha-ha," pitched to his tone, and with his intervals, would be a perfect reproduction of it. No doubt she could sing, and perhaps she does,--who knows?

Now the mother threw in occasionally a louder sort of call-note like "pee-ro," which was quickly followed by the appearance of another thrush, her mate, I presume. He called, too, the usual "quee-o," but he kept himself well out of sight; no reckless mother-love made him lose his reason. Still, steadily though slowly, and with many pauses to study out the next step, I progressed. The cry, often suppressed for minutes at a time, was perceptibly nearer. The bank was rougher than ever, but with one scramble I was sure I could reach my prize. I started carefully, when a cry rang out sudden and sharp and close at hand. At that instant the stone I had put faith in failed me basely and rolled: one foot _went in_, a dead twig caught my hair, part of my dress remained with the sharp end of a broken branch, I came to one knee (but not in a devotional spirit); I struck the ground with one hand and a brier-bush with the other, but I did not drop my glass, and I reached my goal in a fashion.

I paused to recover my breath and give that youngster, who I was persuaded was laughing at me all the time, a chance to lift up his voice again. But he had subsided, while the mother was earnest as ever. Perhaps I was too near, or had scared him out of his wits by my sensational entry. While I was patiently studying every twig on the tree from which the last cry had come, the slight flutter of a leaf caught my eye, and there stood the long-sought infant himself.

He was a few feet below me. I could have laid my hands upon him, but he did not appear to see me, and stood like a statue while I studied his points. Mamma, too, was suddenly quiet; either she saw at last that my intentions were friendly, or she thought the supreme moment had come, and was paralyzed. I had no leisure to look after her; I wanted to make acquaintance with her bairn, and I did. He was the exact image of his parents; I should have known him anywhere, the same soft, tawny back, and light under-parts, but no tail to be seen, and only a dumpy pair of wings, which would not bear him very far. The feathers of his side looked rough, and not fully out, but his head was lovely and his eye was the wild free eye of a veery. I saw the youngster utter his cry. I saw him fly four or five feet, and then I climbed the bank, hopeless of returning the way I had come, pushed my way between detaining spruces, and emerged once more on dry ground. I had been two hours on the trail.

I slipped into the house the back way, and hastened to my room, where I counted the cost: slippers ruined, dress torn, hand scratched, toilet a general wreck. But I had seen the tawny-thrush baby, and I was happy. And it's no common thing to do, either. Does not Emerson count it among Thoreau's remarkable feats that

"All her shows did Nature yield
To please and win this pilgrim wise;
He found the tawny thrush's brood,
And the shy hawk did wait for him"?

XI.

THE TAWNY THRUSH'S BROOD.

"He found the tawny thrush's brood," says Emerson, in enumerating the special gifts of the nature-lover whose praise he celebrates. Whether the reference were to Thoreau or to another "forest-seer," it was certainly to a fortunate and happy man, whom I have always envied till I learned to find the shy brood myself.

I shall never forget the exciting and blissful moment when I discovered my first tawny-thrush nest. It was the crowning event of a long search.

It was not until the fourth year that I had looked for him, that I came really to know the bird, to see his family, and last of all his nest. My summer abiding-place in the Black River country was very near a bit of woods where veeries were plentiful, and I saw them at all hours, and under nearly all conditions.

My favorite seat was at the foot of a low-growing tree in the edge of the woods, where the branches hung over and almost hid me. From under my green screen I could look out into a field golden with buttercups, with scattering elms and maples, while behind me was the forest, the chosen haunt of this bird. Here, unseen, I listened to his song,--

"O matchless melody! O perfect art!
O lovely, lofty voice unfaltering!"

till my soul was filled with rapture, and a longing to know him in his home relations took such possession of me that the world seemed to hold but one object of desire, a veery's nest.

Yet though the woods were full of them, so wary and so wise were the little builders that not a nest could I find. I studied the descriptions in the books; I examined the nests in a collection at hand. The books declared, and the specimens confirmed the statement, that the cradle of the tawny thrush would be found amid certain surroundings. Many such places existed in the woods, and I never passed one without seeking a nest; but always unsuccessfully, till, as June days were rapidly passing, I came to have a feeling something akin to despair when I heard the veery notes.

One day,--it was Sunday afternoon,--I was still grieving over the lost, or rather the unfound nest, and my friend was sitting composedly on the veranda writing letters, when restlessness seized me, and I resolved to take a quiet walk. I sauntered slowly down the road, towards the woods, of course; all roads in that charming place led to the woods.

I had nearly reached the "Sunset Corner," where I had a half-formed intention of resting and then turning back, when my eyes fell upon--but hold! I will not describe it, lest I enlighten one more collector, and aid in the robbery, perhaps the death, of one more bird-mother. Suffice it to say what I saw resembled, though not perfectly, the surroundings of a veery's nest as described in the books.

Of course there could be no nest there, I thought, yet the ruling passion asserted itself at once. It would at least do no harm to look. I left the path, walked carelessly up to the spot, and looked at it. It seemed empty of life; but as I gazed, there gradually took form a head, a pair of anxious eyes fixed upon mine, a beak pointed upward, and there was my nest! almost at my feet.

Joy and surprise contended within me. I thought not of the mother's anxiety; I stood and stared, absolutely paralyzed with delight.

But not for long. I remembered my friend who had not found the tawny thrush's nest, and with whom I must instantly share my happiness, and carefully marking the locality, not to lose what I had so accidentally found, and might so easily lose, I moved quietly away till I reached the road. Then I hurried to an opening in the trees from which the house could be seen. Here I stopped; the letter-writer looked up. I waved my green bough in triumph above my head, and with the other hand I beckoned.

"A veery's nest!" she thought at once. Away went paper and pen, and in a moment she joined me. Together we stood beside the beautiful sitting thrush, so brave, though no doubt suffering from deadly terror. Then we slowly walked away, rejoicing. It was so near the house! so easy to watch! the bird not at all afraid! All the way home we congratulated ourselves.

The next morning our first thought was of the veery's nest, and on starting out for the day we turned in that direction. Alas! the old story! The nest was overturned and thrown out of place, the leaves were trampled; there had evidently been a struggle of some kind. No birds, no eggs, not a bit of broken shell--nothing was left, except one dark brown spotted feather from a large bird, whether hawk or owl I shall never know, for neglecting to take it at the moment, it was gone when I thought of it as a witness.

Again the old longing for a nest assailed me; but I was not without hope, for I had my hint. I had found out what sort of places the veeries in this neighborhood liked. After that I never went into the woods, on whatever errand bent, but I kept my eyes open for the chosen situation. I examined dozens of promising spots, and I found nests that had been used, which proved that I was on the right track, and kept up my courage.

It was several days before another tawny-thrush cradle in use gladdened our eyes, and this was in a wild part of the woods where we seldom went. We were drawn there by the song of a tiny warbler, whose nest my friend desired to find, since it was rare; and in passing a thicket of maple saplings three feet high, she discovered a nest. She quickly parted the leaves and looked in; three young birds opened their mouths for food. "Veeries!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "What a strange place!"

This little home rested on a bare dead stick that had fallen and lodged in a living branch, and the dead leaves used by veeries in their building made it conspicuous, when the eyes happened to fall upon it; but it was so well concealed by living branches that one might pass fifty times and not see it. I describe this location, for it was very unusual.

We looked at the birdlings; we walked on till we came to the place where we turned from the path to see the warbler's little domicile. My friend passed along. I lingered a moment, for it was a lovely spot, attractive to birds as to bird-lovers, and high up in the air on the upturned roots of a fallen tree

"an elder or two
Foamed over with blossoms white as spray."

While I stood there admiring the brave little bush that kept on living and blooming, though lifted into an unnatural position by the tree at whose feet it had grown, some mysterious drawing made me look closely at a spot beside the road which we had passed many times without special notice. There I found our third veery nest, the mother bird sitting.

Henceforth, every morning we went up the veery road, and before each little nursery we sat us down to watch and study. It was necessary to be very quiet, the birds in the saplings were so nervous; but keeping still in the woods in summer is not the easy performance it is elsewhere, though great are the inducements. From one side comes the chirp of the winter wren, from the other, low, excited calls of veeries, and nothing but absolute quiet seems necessary to capture some of the charming secrets of their lives. Meanwhile a dancing and singing host collects around one's head. I call up my philosophy; I resolve not to care, though I shall be devoured. My philosophy stands the strain; I do not _care_; but my nerves basely fail me, and after a few moments, and a dozen stings here and there, I spring involuntarily to my feet, wildly flourish my wisp of leaves, and of course put to instant flight the actors in the drama before me.

The pair of veeries in the maple bushes were never reconciled to our visits. They called and cried in all the varied inflections of their sweet voices, and they moved uneasily about on the low branches with mouths full of food. But though we were as motionless as circumstances would permit, they never learned to trust us.

One--the mother, doubtless--did sometimes pay a flying visit to her three darlings under the leaves; but she undoubtedly felt that she took her life in her hands (so to speak), and it did not give her courage. She returned to her post and cried no less than before. We were not heartless; we could not bear to torture the timid creatures, and therefore we never stayed very long.

Every day we looked at the growing babies, who passed most of their time in sleep, as babies should; and at last came the time, sooner than expected, when we found the family had flitted. Nestlings cradled near the ground seem to be spared the long period in the nest endured by birdlings who must be able to fly before they can safely go. Young veeries and bobolinks, song sparrows and warblers, who build low, apparently take leave of the nursery as soon they can stand up. Thereafter the parents must seek them on the ground; and if the student follows their chirps, he will often see the droll little dumpy fellows running about or crouched under bushes until their wing feathers shall grow and lift them to the bird's world, above the dull earth.

After the exit of the family in the maples, we kept closer watch of the remaining nest. Every day we passed it, and not always at the same hour, yet never but once did we find the mother away, and seven days after that morning, when not one youngster had broken the shell, the family was gone.

The young birds in the maples we had seen in the nest for five days after they were hatched, so we were forced to believe that either the second nest had been robbed, or that the mother had watched for us, and flown to cover her babies after they were hatched, till we had paid our daily visit and passed on. This latter may be the correct conclusion, and if so, her conduct was entirely different from that of any veery I have seen.

Whatever cause had emptied the thrush cradle we found no signs of disturbance about it, and we heard no lamentations. But we did hear from every impenetrable tangle in the woods, the baby-cries of young thrushes; and we ventured to hope that no hawk or owl or squirrel, or other foe in feathers or in fur, had carried off the nestlings of that brave brown-eyed mamma.

XII.

A MEADOW NEST.

A bird's nest in the middle of a meadow is as isolated as if on an island; for the most eager bird student, though he may look and long afar off, will hesitate before he harrows the soul of the owner of the fair waving sea of grass by trampling it down. In such a secure place, among scattered old apple-trees, a pair of veeries had set up their household, surrounded and protected from every enemy who does not wear wings.

They were late in nesting, for young veeries were out everywhere. Doubtless the first home had been destroyed, and they had selected this retreat in the midst of the tall grass for its seclusion and apparent safety.

What dismay, then, must have filled the heart of the timid creatures when there arrived, one morning, a party of men and horses and machines, who proceeded at once, with the clatter and confusion which follows the doings of men, to lay low their green protecting walls, and expose their cherished treasures to the greed or the cruelty of their worst enemies! Not less their surprise and grief when, after the uproar of cutting, raking and carrying away their only screen, there entered the silent but watchful spies, who planted their stools in plain sight, to take note of all their doings.

The nest, with its babies three, was wide open to the sun; no one could pass without seeing it. It was in a cluster of shoots growing up from the roots of an old apple-tree, and so closely crowded between them that its shape was oval.

The nestlings were nearly ready to fly, and I hoped that birds brave enough to come out of the woods and build among apple-trees would be less afraid of people than the woods dwellers. So when I learned of my comrade's discovery I hastened at once to make the acquaintance of this, our fourth nesting-veery of the summer.

The parents were absent when I seated myself at some distance from their homestead to wait. They soon came, together, with food in their mouths; but their eager, happy manner vanished at sight of me, and they abandoned themselves to utter despair, after the manner of veeries. They stood motionless on neighboring perches, and cried and bewailed the anticipated fate of those babies for all of the short time that I was able to endure it. A kingbird came to the tree under which I sat, to see for himself the terrible bugaboo, and a robin or two, as usual, interested themselves in the affairs of a neighbor in trouble.