February 27th. Pitch dark when I woke this morning; and pain to make one clench one’s teeth. Grumpy is not hilarious company at such times, but occasionally he helps by overdoing things.
This morning, for instance, he began about the unendingness of things—sickness, and the long night, and all that—till it struck me all at once it really was morning that second, and only looked like night. Besides, the pain is like this, often, when I don’t feel blue a bit: so it isn’t the pain that makes me miserable—it’s my own mood about the pain; and if a seasoned old party like me can’t manage her own moods, what’s the world coming to?
Only, sometimes I can’t manage them, and I don’t know why. They sweep over me like the waves of the sea, and trample me like wild horses. It isn’t often like that; but when it is, I know I’m in for it—and also that I’m dead sure to get out of it after a while. I’m lying here—this racketty old body, with a piece of me, myself, inside it, just about as miserable as such a combination can get to be. And the rest of me is hanging around outside, looking on, and saying, “Just lie low and keep quiet, old lady. It’s tough, but it won’t last. Lay your nose to the wind and let it howl. If it blows you even on both sides, you’ll get out of it without being crank-sided, and that’s the best you can do.” So I lie here; and after awhile the comfort of knowing it’s just a mood soaks in till I can feel it and get the good of it—and then the storm is past. I come out of it, too, with my self-respect unimpaired; because, no matter how it raged inside, I did keep quiet on the outside till it blew over.
So it blew over this time also. And after awhile even Grumpy was forced to admit that it was morning, for all the world was drenched with light. The long, level beams slipped across the hills as the sun rose, and touched the tree-tops, one by one; and behold, life had risen—in the night. Every twig of the tulip-tree was tipped with green where the great terminal buds had burst their sheaths; and down by the brook a fairy mist of color clung tenuously about the willows. The mocking-bird was in a rapture of prophecy in the maple; and the English sparrows were actually housebuilding in a beautiful hole in the scarlet oak.
Nobody else thinks of nest building yet; but among the birds, as among humans, the increase of population is most rapid where one would fain find it least. These sparrows will be rearing half a dozen families before the year is out—good, large families, too; and it behooves them to select their apartment early in the season. That hole belongs to the wrens, but that’s of no consequence to the sparrows, who have the pleasant habit of taking whatever they want.
It must be owned they are a hardworking tribe, even though their works be evil. If the fathers left their wives to do all the work, after the bluebirds’ fashion, some of the broods would surely starve; the mothers would succumb to nervous prostration before all the mouths could be filled. But the head of the family rolls up his feathers and pitches right in, from nest building days until frost. Nuisances though they be, there isn’t a shirker among them; and they will drop their petty personal squabbles instantly, to make common cause against any bird, big or little, not of sparrow feather. But they shall not have the wren’s hole for all that—not while Uncle Milton can climb a tree for me.
March 6th. The blackbirds are falling in love. Even sensible, lovely creatures are a bit comical when hard hit by the tender passion. In its first inflammatory stages it so utterly destroys the patient’s sense of proportion that one smiles even when one’s heart is aglow with sympathy. But a blackbird lover, a sleek, slick gentleman, oppressed with more dignity than an archbishop could carry gracefully, trying to unlimber enough to convince his inamorata that he desires her favor when he merely wishes to air his perfections for her dazzlement!
One flies to a branch in plain sight of the greedy black gang, gobbling crumbs below, and meditates. Shall he condescend, or shall he not? Well, maybe she is worth it; and it will display his feathers to an admiring world. He ducks a little, spreads wings and tail, rises a-tiptoe, and says something through his nose to call attention to his noble self, though a compliment may be tacked on in the last note. I know that’s just the way Cousin Chad did it when he courted Cousin Jane. And think of the laughterless depths of Cousin Jane’s soul that she found it a performance to take seriously! Things are pretty much evened up in this life, after all. It is true Cousin Jane has no back; but think of a blackbird husband—and of me with the Peon!