"And are there no respectable spinsters with whom they might take up as a last resort?" Leonard queried.
"No, none at all. Think of that, ye maiden of New England, where the males are nearly all migrants and do not return! The only chance for a bird-bachelor is to console some widow whom accident has bereaved of her mate. Widowers also are ready for an immediate second marriage. Birds and beasts of prey and boys—hey, Alf—bring about a good many step-parents."
"Alf don't kill any little birds, do you, Alf?" asked his mother.
"Well, not lately. You said they felt so bad over it But if they get over it so easy as the doctor says—"
"Now, doctor, you see the result of your scientific teaching."
"Why, Mrs. Leonard, are you in sympathy with the priestcraft that would keep people virtuous through ignorance?" said the minister, laughing. "Alf must learn to do right, knowing all the facts. I don't believe he will shy a stone at a bird this coming year unless it is in mischief."
"Well," said Squire Bartley, who had relapsed into a half-doze as the conversation lost its practical bent, "between the birds and boys I don't see as we shall be able to raise any fruit before long. If our boys hadn't killed about all the robins round our house last summer, I don't think we'd 'a had a cherry or strawberry."
"I'm afraid, squire," put in Webb, quietly, "that if all followed your boys' example, insects would soon have the better of us. They are far worse than the birds. I've seen it stated on good authority that a fledgling robin eats forty per cent more than its own weight every twenty-four hours, and I suppose it would be almost impossible to compute the number of noxious worms and moths destroyed by a family of robins in one season. They earn their share of fruit."
"Webb is right, squire," added the doctor, emphatically. "Were it not for the birds, the country would soon be as bare as the locusts left Egypt. Even the crow, against which you are so vindictive, is one of your best friends."
"Oh, now, come, I can't swallow that. Crows pull up my corn, rob hens' nests', carry off young chickens. They even rob the nests of the other birds you're so fond of. Why, some state legislatures give a bounty for their destruction."