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From the branch of a maple that sent its roots into the more defined grade came the dreamy notes of a mourning dove, from a walnut tree a cuckoo uttered his queer song that perhaps was the same as these strange people listened to; indigo buntings sent their high pitched breezy song from the tops of the trees, while the warbling vireo seemed to be saying, "who were they?" and the clear, melodious call of a quail rang from the highest part of the embankment, with just enough querulousness in it to appear as if he too were trying to recall this lost race.
Happily, I had my sister to come home to; and I had the remembrance of the little story my mother told me about my name. I think she looked forward for the boy who could know so little then of the destiny partly laid out for him already." "About your name?" reminded Mr. Vireo. He always liked to hear the whole of a thing; especially a thing that touched and influenced spiritually. "Yes.
In my note-book I find an entry describing my vain attempts to enjoy the music of a rose-breasted grosbeak, who at that time had never been a common bird with me, while "a pesky Wagnerian red-eye kept up an incessant racket." The warbling vireo is admirably named; there is no one of our birds that can more properly be said to warble.
One was the Reverend Hilary Vireo, minister of Mavis Place Chapel, Boston, coming back to his work in glorious renewal from his eight weeks' holiday in Europe. The other was Christopher Kirkbright, younger partner of the house of Ferguson, Ramsay, and Kirkbright, tea and silk merchants, Hong Kong.
However, he kept right on, and as he reached the foot of the hill where Prickly Porky lives, he looked sharply in every direction and listened with all his might for strange sounds. But there was nothing unusual to be seen. The Green Forest looked just as it always did. It was very still and quiet there save for the cheerful voice of Redeye the Vireo telling over and over how happy he was.
To take everything as equally good, to know no difference between bitter and sweet, penury and plenty, slander and praise, this is a great attainment, a Nirvana to which few can hope to arrive. Against the foil of the butcher-bird's stolidity we may set the inquisitive, garrulous temperament of the white-eyed vireo and the yellow-breasted chat.
The morning was fresh and bright; many birds were singing, although it was July, a Red-eyed Vireo and a Robin were in full song; and as Yan rose to get the breakfast he wondered why he had been haunted by such strange feelings the night before. It was incomprehensible now. He wished that appalling wail in the tree-tops would sound again, so he might trace it home.
But none of the people were there to whom any such little speeches had to be made; nobody who needed any accounting to for its oddity was present at Desire Ledwith's wedding. Mr. Vireo officiated; there was something in his method and manner which Mrs. Megilp decidedly objected to. It was "everyday," she thought. "It didn't give you a feeling of sanctity.
If all the mistakes could be forgiven and set right, how much evil, virulent and unmixed, would there be left in the world, do you suppose?" "Not more than there was before the mistakes began," replied Vireo. "Like the Arabian genie, the monster would be drawn down from its horrible expansion to a point again, the point of a possibility; the serpent suggestion of evil choice.
And I have seen the impudent jays, within reach of his hand, swear at him unabashed and unafraid, because he fed a vireo first. I like to think of his intimate friendship with the wholesome country children not the least of his blessings. He was their chief visitor from the outside world.
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