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Two or three times they flew up together, like quarrelsome cocks, but the decisive and final dispute was over the bathing-dish. It happened that morning that the Mexican came out before the goldfinch was shut up, and hence the the mocking-bird's door was not yet opened. He flew at once to the top of his neighbor's cage to dress his feathers and shake himself out.
And now I was riding away to battle, riding right joyously over the chestnut ridges and through the thick laurel, through stretches of pawpaw, beech and flowering poplar, with the pea-vine and buffalo grass soft underfoot. And my heart was as blithe as the mocking-bird's and there was no shadow of tomahawk or scalping-knife across my path.
It was sweet, firm, deep, with something haunting in it the tone of a hermit thrush, marvelously pure and clear, carried through a gay strain like the mocking-bird's. Of course Beverley thought it divine; and when a message came from Colonel Clark bidding him report for duty at once, he felt an impulse toward mutiny of the rankest sort.
I forgot to tell you that Miss Patricia's bay window is full of flowers, and that she has a mocking-bird hanging in a cage above the wire stand that holds her ferns and foliage plants. The mocking-bird's name is Dick. Now Dick hadn't paid any attention to me until I opened the jewel-case.
Occupation of Kinston Opening of Neuse River Rebel ram destroyed Listening to the distant battle at Bentonville Entering Goldsborough Meeting Sherman Grant's congratulations His own plans Sketch of Sherman's march Lee and Johnston's correspondence Their gloomy outlook Am made commandant of Twenty-third Corps Terry assigned to Tenth Schofield promoted in the Regular Army Stanton's proviso Ill effects of living on the country Stopping it in North Carolina Camp jubilee over the fall of Richmond Changes in Sherman's plans Our march on Smithfield House-burning News of Lee's surrender Overtures from Governor Vance Entering Raleigh A mocking-bird's greeting Further negotiations as to North Carolina Johnston proposes an armistice Broader scope of negotiations The Southern people desire peace Terrors of non-combatants assuaged News of Lincoln's assassination Precautions to preserve order The dawn of peace.
The first time the mocking-bird's door was opened he was not in the least surprised; no doubt, seeing others at liberty, he had expected it. At any rate, whatever his emotions, he instantly ran out on the perch placed in his doorway and surveyed his new world from this position. He was in no panic, not even in haste. When fully ready, he began his tour of inspection.
The mocking-bird's movements, excepting in flight, are the perfection of grace; not even the cat-bird can rival him in airy lightness, in easy elegance of motion. In alighting on a fence, he does not merely come down upon it; his manner is fairly poetical.
Just now his song is scrappy, composed of phrases that follow no order and do not fit or harmonize, and is like a poor imitation of an inferior mocking-bird's song. Between the scraps of loud thrush-music I listen to catch the thin, somewhat reedy sound of a yellow-hammer singing in the middle of the adjoining grassy field.
Singing with all its heart, outdoing all it knew, forgetting imitation in wild improvisation, watching her window as it danced upon the twigs and fluttered into the air, conscious of her listening as it purled and warbled towards her, and sounded every pipe and trumpet, virginal and clarion, hautboy and castanet, in the orchestra of its rustic bosom, the mocking-bird's ode seemed almost supernatural this morn to Vesta, and she thought to herself: "Oh, what wedding music in the cathedral at Baltimore could equal that? and this poor man receives it for his epithalamium, without cost, as truly as if nature were greeting my coming to him in the old poet's spirit: "'Now all is done; bring home the bride againe; Bring home the triumph of our victory; Bring home with you the glory of her gaine, With joyance bring her and with jollity: Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluia sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring."
He turned back into the room, partly shutting the door behind him. But he did not finish the process of closing it. For sweet, faint, yet distinct to them all the soaring notes of a mocking-bird's song swelled out on the quiet of the night. "Rodney Hade!" gasped Standish. "It's his first signal. He gives it when he's a hundred yards from the end. Good Lord!
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