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I felt quite content to be one of the birdlings as I went in. I am sorry to say I'm not a bit fonder of Mrs. Ess Kay than I was in the ship; but the "cottage" looked so hospitable and jolly, and the air and the sunshine sparkled so, that I couldn't help feeling that it was pleasant to be young, and alive, and on the threshold of amusing new adventures. I was happy, and I would have liked to sing.
But though I laughed at the absurdity, I found my nerves a little shaken. Just as I reached the wren corner a shriek arose, as if I had stepped on a whole family of birdlings. Again I started, when a saucy squirrel ran out on the branch of a tree, scolding me in good round terms.
And we're eating young partridges tonight, because we had to have something to keep us alive. It's the necessity of the thing that counts, Peter. Think you can understand that?" It was pretty hard for Peter at first, but he was observant, and his mind worked quickly. The crime of destroying birdlings in their nest, or on the ground, was impressed upon him.
Once upon a time I set about developing this father spirit in a group of little gamins whose general attitude toward the weaker sex, toward birds and flowers and insects, toward beauty in distress and wounded sensibility, was in the last degree offensive. In the bird games we had always had a mother bird in the nest with the birdlings; we now introduced a father bird into the game.
Where a bird is carrying food must be a nest with birdlings, and nothing could draw us from that. We waited. In a few minutes the bird appeared again with her mate. Was he the singer? Breathless hush on our part, with eyes fixed on the two restless parents, who were anxious to pass us. In a moment one of them became aggressive.
His poor wife was as much stunned as if he had been brought home dead. She stood pale as death, with lips tightly pressed, with wide open eyes staring wildly. Poor little Eddie and Allie ran to their mother and nestled close to her for protection, as birdlings run to the cover of the mother in seasons of danger.
Our little birdlings still hesitated, just as I have seen children hesitate and quiver with terror when for the first time they go into the water to learn to swim. They know their father tells them the truth, for he has never deceived them. He has bound a life-preserver beneath their arms, and has promised to remain near, to catch them, if they begin to sink; yet they are afraid, and draw back.
They willingly listen to all the plans of the birdlings, and lend an attentive ear to the story of their joys and their sorrows. Their sympathy is never withheld; their griefs are never considered as of no consequence because they are brief and soon forgotten. The parent birds do not leave their young alone but a little while at a time.
Not only dust does the south wind bring, but heat, terrible and suffocating, like that of a fiery furnace. Before it the human and the vegetable worlds shrink and wither, and birds and beasts are little seen. Such a day was the birthday in the little nest in the raspberries, and on my usual morning call I found four featherless birdlings, with beaks already yawning for food.
"It is wonderful to feel him. His whole body is beating like a heart." And when his song was finished, she bent towards him, and never, never so softly touched the top of his green head with her lips. "And, now fly away, birdlings back to your affairs," she said. "Good-bye until to-morrow." She rose, and there was an instant whir of fluttering wings. "Shall we walk?" she said to Anthony.
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