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One phase of those days must by no means go unrecorded namely, the Broadway omnibuses, with their drivers. But the flush days of the old Broadway stages, characteristic and copious, are over. The Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth avenue, the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all gone.
The plainly-dressed sparrows and the brilliant yellow-birds look in upon them, and, now and then, their cousin, the oriole, comes, clad in the richest golden plumage, and sings them a song. If he had dipped his feathers in the gorgeous sunset he could not be more beautiful.
An irregular attendance of yellow-birds and squirrels dismissed themselves hurriedly through the broken floor and windows, but a golden lizard, stiffened suddenly into stony fright on the edge of an open arithmetic, touched the heart of the master so strongly by its resemblance to some kept-in and forgotten scholar who had succumbed over the task he could not accomplish, that he was seized with compunction.
Yonder, in that clump of alders by the brook, is the delicious jargoning of the first flock of yellow-birds; there are the little gentlemen in black and yellow, and the little ladies in olive-brown; "sweet, sweet, sweet" is the only word they say, and often they will so lower their ceaseless warble, that, though almost within reach, the little minstrels seem far away.
Till now I had never found them at home except in the forests of the White Mountains; but here they were, playing the rôle which in Massachusetts we are accustomed to see taken by the summer yellow-birds, and by no others of the family.
The grass grew so lusty and strong that the dandelions were hidden except as the breeze caught up the winged seeds that the tuneful yellow-birds often seized in the air. The rye had almost reached its height, and Johnnie said it was "as good as going to the ocean to see it wave." At last the swelling buds on the rose-bushes proclaimed the advent of June.
Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own sight-proof bush.
"Many a May morning," she says, "have I wandered about the rock at the foot of the tower, mourning over a little apron brimful of sparrows, swallows, thrushes, robins, fire-winged blackbirds, many- colored warblers and flycatchers, beautifully clothed yellow-birds, nuthatches, catbirds, even the purple finch and scarlet tanager and golden oriole, and many more beside, enough to break the heart of a small child to think of!
She missed the bluebirds from the cornfield, and the yellow-birds from the flax; she missed the meadow-larks from the lawns, and the quails from the oats and wheat; she missed the bobolinks from the hayfields, and the jays from the girdling; she missed the ground-birds from the pastures, and thrushes and sweet swamp-robins from the woods; and the poor girl wandered about for months very sad and lonely, singing no songs and sharing no delights.
But next winter, when I saw the "yellow-birds" and the red-poll linnets feeding together in Commonwealth Avenue, I thought at once of my Wachusett friend. Here was the very scene he had so faithfully described, some of the flock with no red at all, some with red crowns, and a few with bright carmine crowns and breasts.
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