Gray Lady and the Birds: Stories of the Bird Year for Home and School

by Mabel Osgood Wright

BIRD SONGS OF MEMORY

Oh, surpassing all expression by the rhythmic use of words,

Are the memories that gather of the singing of the birds:

When as a child I listened to the Whip-poor-will at dark,

And with the dawn awakened to the music of the Lark.

Then what a chorus wonderful when morning had begun,—

The very leaves, it seemed to me, were singing to the sun,

And calling on the world asleep to waken and behold

The king in glory coming forth along his path of gold.

The crimson-fronted Linnet sang above the river’s edge,

The Finches in the evergreens, the Thrasher in the hedge;

Each one as if a dozen songs were chorused in his own,

And all the world were listening to him and him alone.

In gladness sang the Bobolink upon ascending wing,

With cheery voice the bird of blue, the pioneer of spring,

The Oriole upon the elm, with martial note and clear,

While Martins twittered gayly by the cottage window near.

Among the orchard trees were heard the Robin and the Wren,

And the army of the Blackbirds along the marshy fen;

The songster in the meadow and the Quail upon the wheat,

And the warbler’s minor music made the symphony complete.

Beyond the tow’ring chimney’d walls that daily meet my eyes,

I hold a vision beautiful beneath the summer skies;

Within the city’s grim confines, above the roaring street,

The Happy Birds of Memory are singing clear and sweet.

—Garrett Newkirk.

XXI
JACOB HUGHES’ OPINION OF CATS

One morning after a light snow-storm, followed by sparkling sunshine, Gray Lady took the younger children out for a walk through Birdland and the lane. Not but what even the younger children knew the way! But often as they had trodden it, there were many things that they noticed for the first time: the wonderful shapes of the snow crystals, the snow flowers that blossomed on the old weed stalks, the snow filling that brought many hidden nests into view, and all the other wonders that are so often wrought in the winter night, while we sleep soundly.

Tommy and Dave, who had walked on ahead, halted suddenly and picked up a handful of feathers from the snow and stood looking at them as Gray Lady came up.

“A bad Hawk or a Crow or Owl or something big has been here,” said Dave, with a quaver in his voice, “and it’s killed a banty rooster that looks just like mine, that is, this bunch of feathers does; but then, Goldilocks has banties, too, so perhaps it is one of hers,” and he held the feathers up.

Gray Lady took them; yes, they were banty feathers, and from a bird that had not been long dead, for the quill ends were still moist. Then she looked at the ground: “Something that did not fly has killed the bantam, and dragged its body along the ground, and it had feet with padded claws, look!” she said, and there was a blood-stained trail that skirted the bushes and then ran across the lane toward a hay-barn that now held only bedding and cornstalks.

“You children amuse yourselves here while Tommy, Dave, and I follow this up.”

Nothing could have been more simple than this following, as the footprints of the large cat, for that is what it was, showed plainly in the new snow, and, here and there, a few drops of blood also marked the way. Straight to the barn ran the trail, and then through a small door that had been left open at Gray Lady’s request, that birds might take shelter inside.

So they had, poor things, and so had the cat also. On the floor were other feathers of many kinds, among which Gray Lady recognized the white-spotted tail-feathers of a Robin, the pointed shafts of the Flicker, and gray-and-white down that might have come from a Junco’s breast; while half hidden by loose cornstalks was the foot of a Grouse, also yellow legs that had belonged to a good-sized chicken.

The boys stood still in amazement, and Dave said, “I knew foxes and dogs carried things home or buried them, but I didn’t know cats did unless they have kittens hidden. I wonder if there are kittens in the cornstalks, and if this cat stole all the chickens we’ve been losing every day almost along since fall? Because it couldn’t be any kind of birds that stole them, they couldn’t get in; and father said it lay between cats, rats, and weasels.”

“We will soon find out,” said Gray Lady. “Will you boys go down to the stable and ask Jacob to come up? I will watch here.” As soon as they had gone, Gray Lady went into a corner and seated herself upon a box. Presently she heard a rustle among the cornstalks and out stalked a great tiger-striped cat, licking her whiskers. After snuffing the footsteps of the boys, she began to lash her tail to and fro, which in a cat means anger, and quite the reverse of the dog’s sociable, “I’m glad to see you” tail-wag. Then, looking back at the hole in the corn stack through which she had come, she made a strange sound, half purr, half growl, that Gray Lady thought was evidently intended as a note of warning, and then the cat slunk off through the snow, keeping as close to the fence as possible and dropping her body low as she hurried away.

When Jacob came, he took a hayfork and began to shift the cornstalks from the corner to the empty floor opposite. The feathers, he said, had all been gathered during the two past weeks, for when he had last taken the wood-sled from the barn, no feathers were to be seen.

“Here they are!” he exclaimed, as the last stack was reached, but even as he spoke, six half-grown kittens, brindled like their parent, sprang in different directions, some going up on the beams and others diving into the hay, only one remaining, with arched back and flashing eyes, to hiss a protest at the disturbing of their comfortable home.

“What’s the use of making bird laws and feeding birds and all that, and letting wild beasts like these multiply about the country?” said Jacob, resting on the handle of the fork. “No, ma’am, if I had my way, I’d get up a Kind Heart Club of men to help the birds and rid the township of homeless cats, red squirrels, and English Sparrows—yes, I would, ma’am!

“I have eyes and I use them, and I know cats are worse enemies to birds, counting wild birds and poultry together, than everything else that walks or flies humped together. Tame house cats are bad enough, for they’ll kill for pleasure when they’re not hungry. My sister over at Hill’s farm says she’s taken over fifty dead or half-dead birds away from her pet cat this summer, until it sickened her of the idea of keeping cats.

“But when it comes to the half-breeds that some folks let grow up because they’re too slack to kill ’em, it’s just a crime! Look at this piece of work here; the cat that has done all this is one of the outcasts of the lot down at the grist-mill. Cats are only half tamed at best; let them get a taste of hunting and back they go and are savages.

“They don’t belong to this country; we folks brought ’em, like we did English Sparrows, and we made a mistake, and we ought to undo it when we can. Transplanted animals, like pauper foreigners, always get the upper hand. Traps can catch up the rats and mice, only we’re too lazy to set them. Cats are no good, even for pets, for they’re tricky, and they aren’t healthy for children to have because they carry skin diseases and such in their fur. They claim that Jessie Lyons that died in Bridgeton ’long in the fall got the diphtheria from her cat’s trampin’ all over creation, and then her huggin’ it.

“If it’s right and proper to license dogs, and if one kills fowls or sheep, for the town to pay damages, then, say I, the least we can do is to license cats and hold the owners for their mischief.

“Next to cats I’m most put out with red squirrels and English Sparrows. The first are sneaks; they take eggs, little birds, and all. They make free with young gray squirrels, too, and don’t spare their next-door neighbours even, while Sparrows hustle and do much likewise, taking the nesting-places of Swallows and Bluebirds and Jenny Wrens, and fighting and wrastling with anything smaller than themselves, breaking up nests and pitching out young ones until I just can’t stand it! Now it’s woe to any of these three that comes across my path. Maybe some folks will say I’m cruel. Will those folks let mice and rats eat their groceries and not kill them? and by themselves rats and mice are decent, clean animals.

“Not they; and to us that love our tree birds, cats and red squirrels and English Sparrows are hateful as are rats and mice, and I warrant you’ll not think I’m going too far when I say it, ma’am!”

“No, Jacob, you are right, though I’m sorry to say so,” answered Gray Lady, still looking at the feathers. “The cat tribe is by nature cruel. All animals kill for food, but the cat tortures before she kills. I used to defend the keeping of pet cats until one that I had trusted bit me through the hand at a moment when I was petting her, without the slightest provocation. I never knew a dog to bite his master unprovoked—unless he was ill—and even if we love our cats, we should be unselfish, for birds are of value to the country at large and cats are not. Only, I insist upon this, that the killing, even of vermin, is a matter for the grown-up, and some one with authority should be appointed to do it. It should not be left to the young and irresponsible, just as the punishing of human criminals is not a matter for the people in general to decide and put in execution.

“Yes, boys,” Gray Lady continued, “I wish every one would feel responsible in this matter. No farmer will raise more poultry or calves or colts than he can feed and then turn them loose to either starve or prey upon his neighbours. Why, then, should he allow his cats to straggle about and kill the song-birds that even much money cannot buy or replace? But come, we must go on; the others will be wondering where we are.

“I want you all to look at something at the lane end,—that great beech tree with the gray streaked trunk. Do you see the sunbeams playing checkers on the bark, this side? Do you know what this means? I will tell you. It means that the tide of winter is turning toward spring, that February is here. We should not know it unless we looked at the day in the calendar. It is quite as cold as it has been all through the winter, but the days are growing longer, and now, once more, the sun slips by the barn in the morning and lies upon the beech trunk that has been in shadow all winter long.

“My father showed me this when I was a child; and whenever I grew tired of winter, the earth seemed dead, and it seemed as if spring would never come back, he would say, ‘Go up the lane and see if the sun’s message is written on the beech tree.’ So, while it is still winter here, down in the South the flocks of Robins and Song Sparrows and Bluebirds are reading the sun’s message, and, far away as spring seems, they are planning their return. Meanwhile we have the brave winter birds to keep us cheerful. See the flock of Juncoes alighting yonder. They are as plump and freshly plumed as new arrivals in spring dress. This Snowbird is no sloven, he always wears a trim dress-suit.”

Better far, ah yes! than no bird

Is the ever-present snowbird;

Gayly tripping, dainty creature,

When the snow hides every feature;

Covers fences, field, and tree,

Clothes in white all things but thee.

Restless, twittering, trusty snowbird

Lighter heart than thine hath no bird.

—C. C. Abbott, Snowbird.

XXII
FEBRUARY, “THE LONG-SHORT MONTH”

Bluebird, Song Sparrow, Robin

“I wonder why February is so long, when it is the very shortest month in the year?” said Goldilocks one Saturday, as she and Miss Wilde were walking from Swallow Chimney, up through Birdland, to the big house for the bird class.

“I have often thought the same thing myself,” answered Rose Wilde, “and I think it must be because, knowing that it is a short month, we think spring is hurrying to us because we are trying to hurry toward it. Spring, however, never hurries to return to New England, even when nature faces her this way she seems to take pleasure in walking backward!”

Miss Wilde and Goldilocks had become fast friends since the little teacher had come to live on the hill. With the interest Gray Lady had shown in the children and school, the dreary, lonely days had passed away, and she no longer looked pale and nervous, but was bright-eyed, with a lovely soft colour in her cheeks, so that, as Goldilocks told her one day, her name could be written in two ways, Rose Wilde, and Wild Rose, which, of course, made her blush with pleasure, and look all the more like that radiant June flower.

Goldilocks would have liked to go to school at Foxes Corners with the others, but the doctor shook his head and said something to her mother about “unwholesome stove heat, fresh air but not draughts,” but Gray Lady smiled at Goldilocks with a mysterious sort of glance that always hid a surprise and said, “Be content to grow strong this winter and wait and see what will happen.”

“Yes, but Miss Wilde may go to a better school next year, if she is well, for you know that Sarah Barnes’ grandmother heard that she had two chances, one at the Bridgeton High School and one to teach the eighth grade at the Centre. Besides, the children I like best—Sarah, and Tommy, and Dave, and Eliza—won’t be at Foxes Corners next year. If their parents can take turns in lending them a horse, they will have to go to the Centre School for the eighth grade, because no one can go from Foxes Corners straight into the High School, and they do so want to learn.”

“Of course it is quite possible that Rose Wilde may go to another school, and we would not wish to keep her back, I’m sure, little daughter.” Something in Gray Lady’s voice made Goldilocks look at her quickly.

“I can’t guess what it is, motherkin, but I simply know that you have a secret and a plan in your head that I may not know until summer.” Then Goldilocks smiled to herself, as she remembered that she also had, or rather was a part of, a secret of Miss Wilde’s that her mother could not know until summer; and this secret had many things in it,—girls and boys, needles and thread and bits of coloured cloth, long walks into the far-away hemlock woods, axes, and many other things!

---

It was now the last week in February. Every one was on the lookout for the first spring migrants, and the children were beginning to bring news of birds that they had seen imperfectly and yet were sure were new arrivals from the South. It was impossible that most of these birds should have been in the vicinity, but the pictures on the charts, mixed with equal portions of imagination and hope, caused the children to think they saw the bird that they wished to be the first to report, rather than the one that was actually there.

Aside from the birds that are represented by a few individuals all the year the only newcomers to hope for are a few adventurous Blackbirds, the Purple Grackle, and the Red-wing, and they are not usually seen in any numbers before the beginning of March. There are three birds, however, that, unless the month is very stormy, may be expected at any time to show their fresh plumage and bring the latest news of travel to their stay-at-home brothers who have remained behind. These are the Bluebird, the Song Sparrow, and the Robin.

“We all know those. Even little brother Ebby knows those birds,” said Clary, when Gray Lady proposed to spend the morning in the company of the most homelike and familiar birds of New England. “That is, Ebby knows the Bluebird and Robin, and the Song Sparrow if it is singing; but I do think Sparrows are dreadful hard to tell by sight. If a Song Sparrow doesn’t sing, and turns his back so’s I can’t see the big spot and the little one on his breast, I don’t always know him myself.”

“I hope that we all know these three birds,” said Gray Lady, “but, like old friends, we are even more glad to see them when they come than if they were the most brilliant of strangers. Old friends also may bring news, and as for birds, no one can ever be sure that there is nothing new to learn of them. And as for what we do know, it becomes fresh and new each spring with his return. One thing about this bird is worthy of notice, and that is the wonderful way in which Nature uses colour, both as an ornament and a protection to her children. The majority of the brightly coloured birds do not arrive until there are at least a few leaves to screen them; the Oriole, Tanager, Rose-breast, and Indigo-bird perching on leafless branches. Yet the Bluebird and the Blue Jay, both of brilliant and striking plumage, are with us when the trees are entirely bare, and when evergreens are lacking they have only sky or earth for a background.

“What does this mean? Look out of the window, Sarah, as you are the nearest to it, and perhaps you will discover. Do you see two Bluebirds in the branches of the old Bell pear tree in the garden? No? Look again; they are in the top, where the blue sky shows through the smaller limbs.”

“No, ma’am; that is, I see something moving, but I can’t see any colour. Oh, yes! now I do; it was because the blue of their backs came right against the sky and matched it.”

“Yes,” said Gray Lady, “and the light underparts match the snow and the ruddy breast the fresh earth, so that the Bluebird’s beauty is his protection also; for as our dear old friend John Burroughs says, ‘When Nature made the Bluebird, she wished to gain for him the protection of both earth and sky, so she gave him the colour of one on his back and the other on his breast; yes, and we might also add a touch beneath of the snow that falls from sky to earth.’

“For the rest, who dares write of the Bluebird, thinking to add a fresher tint to his plumage, a new tone to his melodious voice, or a word of praise to his gentle life, that is as much a part of our human heritage and blended with our memories as any other attribute of home?

“Not I, surely, for I know him too well, and each year feel myself more spellbound and mute by memories he awakens. Yet I would repeat his brief biography, lest there be any who, being absorbed by living inward, have not yet looked outward and upward to this poet of the sky and the earth and the fulness and goodness thereof.

“For the Bluebird was the first of all poets,—even before man had blazed a trail in the wilderness or set up the sign of his habitation and tamed his thoughts to wear harness and travel to measure. And so he came to inherit the earth before man, and this, our country, is all the Bluebird’s country, for at some time of the year he roves about it from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Mexico to Nova Scotia, though westward, after he passes the range of the Rocky Mountains, he wears a different dress and bears other longer names.

“In spite of the fact that our eastern Bluebird is a home-body, loving his nesting-haunt and returning to it year after year, he is an adventurous traveller. Ranging all over the eastern United States at some time in the season, this bird has its nesting-haunts at the very edge of the Gulf States and upward, as far north as Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

National Association of Audubon Societies

Upper Figures—CHESTNUT-BACKED BLUEBIRD

Order—Passeres Family—Turdidæ

Genus—Sialia Species—Mexicana

Subspecies—Bairdi

Lower Figures—BLUEBIRDS

Order—Passeres Family—Turdidæ

Genus—Sialia Species—Sialis

“When the breeding season is over, the birds travel sometimes in family groups and sometimes in large flocks, moving southward little by little, according to season and food supply, some journeying as far as Mexico, others lingering through the middle and southern states. The Bluebirds that live in our orchards in summer are very unlikely to be those that we see in the same place in winter days. Next to breeding impulse, the migrating instinct seems to be the strongest factor in bird-life. When the life of the home is over, Nature whispers, ‘To wing, up and on!’ So a few of the Bluebirds who have nested in Massachusetts may be those who linger in New Jersey, while those whose breeding-haunts were in Nova Scotia drift downward to fill their places in Massachusetts. But the great mass of even those birds we call winter residents go to the more southern parts of their range every winter; those who do not being but a handful in comparison.

“Before more than the first notes of the spring have sounded in the distance, Bluebirds are to be seen by twos and threes about the edge of old orchards along open roads, where the skirting trees have crumbled or decaying knot-holes have left tempting nooks for the tree-trunk birds, with which the Bluebird may be classed. For, though he takes kindly to a bird-box, or a convenient hole in fence-post, telegraph pole, or outbuilding, a tree hole must have been his first home, and consequently he has a strong feeling in its favour.

“As with many other species of migrant birds, the male is the first to arrive; and he does not seem to be particularly interested in house-hunting until the arrival of the female, when the courtship begins without delay, and the delicate purling song, with the refrain, ‘Dear, dear, think of it, think of it,’ and the low two-syllabled answer of the female is heard in every orchard. The building of the nest is not an important function,—merely the gathering of a few wisps and straws, with some chance feathers for lining. It seems to be shared by both parents, as are the duties of hatching, and feeding the young. The eggs vary in number, six being the maximum, and they are not especially attractive, being of so pale a blue that it is better to call them bluish white. Two broods are usually raised each year, though three are said to be not uncommon; for Bluebirds are active during a long season, and, while the first nest is made before the middle of April, last year a brood left the box over my rose arbour September 12, though I do not know whether this was a belated or a prolonged family arrangement.

“As parents the Bluebirds are tireless, both in supplying the nest with insect food and attending to its sanitation; the wastage being taken away and dropped at a distance from the nest at almost unbelievably short intervals, proving the wonderful rapidity of digestion and the immense amount of labour required to supply the mill inside the little speckled throats with grist.

“The young Bluebirds are spotted thickly on throat and back, after the manner of the throat of their cousin, the Robin; or rather, the back feathers are spotted, the breast-feathers having dusky edges, giving a speckled effect.

“The study of the graduations of plumage of almost any brightly coloured male bird, from its first clothing until the perfectly matured feather of its breeding season, is in itself a science and a subject about which there are many theories and differences of opinion by equally distinguished men.

“The food of the nestling Bluebird is insectivorous, or, rather, to be more exact, I should say animal; but the adult birds vary their diet at all seasons by eating berries and small fruits. In autumn and early winter cedar and honeysuckle berries, the grapelike cluster of fruit of the poison ivy, bittersweet and cat-brier berries, are all consumed according to their needs.

“Professor Beal, of the Department of Agriculture, writes, after a prolonged study, that 76 per cent of the Bluebird’s food ‘consists of insects and their allies, while the other 24 per cent is made up of various vegetable substances, found mostly in stomachs taken in winter. Beetles constitute 28 per cent of the whole food, grasshoppers 22 per cent, caterpillars 11 per cent, and various insects, including quite a number of spiders, comprise the remainder of the insect diet. All these are more or less harmful, except a few predaceous beetles, which amount to 8 per cent, but in view of the large consumption of grasshoppers and caterpillars, we can at least condone this offence, if such it may be called. The destruction of grasshoppers is very noticeable in the months of August and September, when these insects form more than 60 per cent of the diet.’

“It is not easy to tempt Bluebirds to an artificial feeding-place, such as I keep supplied with food for Juncoes, Chickadees, Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, Jays, etc.; yet it has been done, and they have been coaxed to nest close to houses and feed on window-sills like the Chickadees. In winter they will eat dried currants, and make their own selection from mill sweepings if scattered about the trees of their haunts. For, above all things, the Bluebird, though friendly, and seeking the borderland between the wild and the tame, never becomes familiar, and never does he lose the half-remote individuality that is one of his great charms. Though he lives with us, and gives no sign of pride of birth or race, he is not one of us, as the Song Sparrow, Chippy, or even the easily alarmed Robin. The poet’s mantle envelops him as the apple blossoms throw a rosy mist about his doorway, and it is best so.