[CHAPTER IX]
THE STORY OF THE SUMMER YELLOWBIRD
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives.
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings—
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest;
In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best?
James Russell Lowell.
Here is a legend of the summer yellowbird. Let who will believe or disbelieve. They will think of it as often as they see the yellow beauty.
Once on a time, when Mother Nature was very lavish of her gold, she forgot to be thrifty and took to spreading it everywhere. She thought she had enough to make the whole world yellow, this being her favorite color; but she soon collected her wits, and reasoned that if everything were yellow there would be nothing left for contrast. So she quit spreading it on, and took to tossing it about in great glee, not caring where it went, so it was in dashes and dots and streaks and lumps, here and there.
She threw whole handfuls on the flowers, and butterflies, and little worms, and toadstools, and grass roots, and up in the sky at sunset, and against mountain peaks. The mountains laughed at this sudden whim of Mother Nature, opening their mouths wide, and got whole apronfuls tossed right down their throats.
After the ocean bottoms had been peppered with the gold, the flowers came along for their share; the buttercups and dandelions, and goldenrod and sunflowers and jonquils, and hosts of others.
Last came the orioles and finches and bobolinks, and many others, each in turn getting a spray or a dash or a grain of the yellow, and went away singing about it.