“WHIR, whir, whir,” sounded the swish of many silken wings. The swallows had arrived from the South; thousands of them there were, long winged and dusky brown, with faintly russet breasts. So full of joyous bustle they were over their arrival, “cheep, cheep, cheeping,” making a great clamor as they separated into colonies, seeking to locate for the summer. The old red barn seemed to invite them; in fact, two colonies had a regular pitched battle over its possession, until at last the stronger band drove away the weaker, and took possession of the coveted spot. They swarmed into the old barn through small windows high in its peak, chattering together as they selected building sites, many of them hastily using last season’s mud-caked foundations. So great a disturbance did the swallows make in the silence of the dim, old barn that they disturbed and finally awakened many who had not aroused themselves from their winter’s torpor and sleep.
Far up in a distant peak of the barn, in a certain dim corner, where a great rafter lapped, forming a secluded sort of shelf, there hung, stretched across the corner, an unusually large cobweb curtain. The old gray spider who had spun the web had abandoned his web when cold weather came, and crawled down into the warm hay. Gradually thick dust collected upon the web curtain, and well it did, because back of it, upon the wide, dusty beam it covered, lay two torpid things, resembling nothing so much as two round balls of brown fur.
The strident chatter of the swallows had penetrated the small round ears of the two fur balls, perhaps, or it might have been the light from a stray yellow sunbeam, which at a certain hour of each day had a way of filtering through a crack and warming their retreat. At any rate, one of the torpid things began to slowly undo itself; a small, mouse-like head appeared first, having round, delicate ears of membrane, which appeared rather too large for its head. Its eyes, when it opened them, were exactly like two black-jet beads, and its rather wide, pink mouth was liberally armed with tiny, saw-like teeth, which the fur ball showed as it yawned sleepily, stretching itself, and spreading out its wings, to which were attached by a thin membrance its forearms and legs. Then, fully awake, it plunged straight through the cobweb curtain, tearing it apart from end to end, and sending back a sharp, encouraging squeak to the smaller fur ball to follow.
Of course the two ridiculous fur balls were just the bat family, and lifelong tenants of the old red barn, as everybody knows. The smaller, more timorous bat, soon followed her mate from behind the web curtain and joined him upon the broad beam. But so clumsy and half awake was she that the very first thing she did was to make a misstep and go pitching off the high beam into space. She landed upon the hay, fortunately, and then began the funniest sight. Did you ever chance to see a bat when it attempted to walk? They seldom use their feet, and when they do it is a droll sight.
As soon as Mrs. Bat recovered from her dizzy fall, she put forth one wing and a hind leg and began to walk toward a beam, for strangely enough she could not fly from so low an elevation, but must climb some distance in order to launch herself properly into the air. Hitching and tumbling along she finally reached a beam, and clutching it she began to climb it head downward, exactly as a woodpecker does. Then, having reached the desired height, she whirled away, and landed finally beside her mate.
The barn was a very silent place. The rasping of its rusty latch always gave ample time for all its little wild tenants to get under cover, so usually all you heard when you entered would be the hidden, lonely trill of a cricket or a faint, stealthily rustle in the hay.
Upon a broad beam far up over the loft where the oat straw was stored, lived rather an exclusive family, that of the barn owl. You would never have dreamed they were there, so well did the brown feathers of the owls blend in with the dimness of the shadows. Under the grain bins, far down below, lived a large colony of fat rats, while in among the dried clover raced and romped shoals of field-mice who wintered there. But there was another, a new tenant, feared and shunned by all the others. He came from no one knew where, exactly; still the farmer’s boy might have explained, for he had lost a pet ferret.
The ferret was an ugly creature to look upon, its body long and snaky, and covered with yellowish-white, rather dirty-looking fur; its movements were sly and furtive, and somehow always struck terror to every tenant of the barn whenever they saw him steal forth. All winter the ferret had been there, and the hay was literally honeycombed with its secret tunnels, and woe to anything which happened to cross its evil trail.
Each evening soon after twilight the swallows would return to the barn from their raids, and when the shadows grew quite dusky, far down beneath them, then the bats and the barn owl family would launch themselves out into the night.
“Squeak, squeak,” ordered the big male bat; then like two shadows they would flit silently off upon their velvety wings. All during the early part of the night they chased gnats and bugs, because they invariably got their best pickings before midnight, for after that time insects were harder to find because most of them crawl beneath sheltering leaves, as the night wanes, to get away from the heavy, drenching dew, or hide from their enemies before daylight overtakes them. Before the dim shadows began to lift, the bats and owls had returned, usually, but the bat family did not retire again behind their cobweb curtain; instead they hung themselves by their wing claws head downward from their beam, folding their wings closely over their beady eyes, and thus they would sleep all day.