David watched him until he had vanished, and then turned toward Pepeeta with a look of disappointment and chagrin.
"It is too bad," she cried, hastening toward him sympathetically, "but see, there is a redbird on the top of that old birch tree. Try again! You will have better success this time, I am sure you will."
He determined to make another experiment. The brilliant songster was pouring out his heart in that fine cry of strength and hope which he sends resounding over hill and vale. Suddenly hearing his own voice repeated to him in an echo sweet and pure as his own song, he fluttered his wings, peered this way and that, and sang again. Once more the answering call resounded, true as an image in a mirror.
David now began to move with greater caution than before toward the little creature, who looked at him with curious glances. Back and forth resounded the sweet antiphonal, and the bird hopped down a branch or two. Neither of the actors in this woodland drama removed his eyes from the other, and the spectator watched them both with breathless interest.
Presently David lifted his hands—the palms closed together in the form of a cup or nest. The songster bent farther forward on the twig, and suddenly with a downward plunge shot straight toward them; but just as his tiny feet touched the fingers, turned as the squirrel had done, and uttering a loud cry of terror flew away. David dropped his hands and his eyes.
"I have lost my power," he said sadly.
"You are out of practice, you must exercise it oftener. It will all come back," Pepeeta responded cheerfully.
They walked slowly and silently back to the place where they had been sitting, and David began tossing pebbles into the brook.
"Three times to-day," he said, pausing and turning toward Pepeeta, "I have opened my hands and my heart, and each time the object whose love I sought has fluttered away from me in terror or repugnance."
"Oh! no, not in terror and repugnance," she said eagerly.