A Red-headed Woodpecker, carrying a yellow butterfly, flew on a fence stake ahead of them and peeped around as they drew near. The setting sun on his bright plumage, the lilac stake and the yellow butterfly, completed a most gorgeous bit of colour and gave Yan a thrill of joy. A Meadow Lark on a farther stake, a Bluebird on another, and a Vesper Bird on a stone, each added his appeal to eye and ear, till Sam exclaimed:
"Oh, ain't that awful nice?" and Yan was dumb with a sort of saddened joy.
Birds hate the wind, and this was one of those birdy days that come only with a dead calm.
They passed a barn with two hundred pairs of Swallows flying and twittering around, a cut bank of the road had a colony of 1,000 Sand Martins, a stream had its rattling Kingfishers, and a marsh was the playground of a multitude of Red-winged Blackbirds.
Yan was lifted up with the joy of the naturalist at seeing so many beautiful living things. Sam felt it, too; he grew very silent, and the last half-mile to the "Corner" was passed without a word. The boots were got. Sam swung them around his neck and the boys set out for home. The sun was gone, but not the birds, and the spell of the evening was on them still. A Song Sparrow by the brook and a Robin high in the Elm were yet pouring out their liquid notes in the gloaming.
[163] "I wish I could be always here," said Yan, but he started a little when he remembered how unwilling he had been to come.
There was a long silence as they lingered on the darkening road. Each was thinking hard.
A loud, startling but soft "Ohoo—O-hoo—O-hoooooo," like the coo of a giant dove, now sounded about their heads in a tree. They stopped and Sam whispered, "Owl; big Hoot Owl." Yan's heart leaped with pleasure. He had read all his life of Owls, and even had seen them alive in cages, but this was the first time he had ever heard the famous hooting of the real live wild Owl, and it was a delicious experience.
The night was quite dark now, but there were plenty of sounds that told of life. A Whippoorwill was chanting in the woods, a hundred Toads and Frogs creaked and trilled, a strange rolling, laughing cry on a marshy pond puzzled them both, then a Song Sparrow in the black night of a dense thicket poured forth its sweet little sunshine song with all the vigour and joy of its best daytime doing.