The normal, natural way, of course, is to replace a lost feather with a new one as soon as possible; but in order to give extra strength to the wing feathers nature has found it necessary to check their frequent change, and so complete is the check that the annual moult is required to replace one of them. The Japanese have discovered the secret of this check, and are able by it to keep certain feathers in the tails of their cocks growing until they reach the enormous length of ten to twelve feet.
My crow, it seems, lost his three feathers just after his annual moult; the three broken shafts he carries still in his wing, and must continue to carry, as the stars must continue their courses. These three feathers must round out their cycle to the annual moult. The universe of worlds and feathers is a universe of law, of order, and of reason.
XI
High Noon
Lazily sailing clouds, and between them, far away, the illimitable blue! And how blue! how cool! how far away! Never does the sky seem of so real azure, so fresh and new, but so mysteriously distant, as upon such a July day as this; and never does the earth seem so warm and near. I lie outstretched upon it as close as I ever lay upon my mother’s breast. I feel the crisp moss beneath me, the creeping of the beetle under my shoulder, the heat of the gray stone against my side. I throw out my hands, push my fingers into the hot soil and feel them take root. Mother earth! The clouds sail on; the bending blue recedes; and—heaven? It matters not. Here are my brothers,—the beetle, the moss, the gray stone; and here I lie in the arms of the mother who bore me.
I have questions to ask—to-morrow; dreams to dream—to-morrow; things to do—to-morrow. To-day I am free in the fields; to-day I am brother to the beetle and the stone; I am neighbor to this ancient white oak in whose shade I lie; I am child to the earth. It is enough to be to-day.
How warm is this mother breast, even here, under the tree! The sun is overhead. The summer is at its height. The flood-tide of life has come. It is high noon of the year.