Calmed ’neath wide skies on earth’s green breast;
And hearken while the steadfast hills
Breathe strength to fainting human wills.
And through this changing, fair disguise
Know thou Love’s voice, and meet Love’s eyes!
April 10th. Out on the porch again, in the warm, sweet air, with all birddom for company. Caro has gone driving with Bob White, after wheeling me here for my own pleasure and for the Peon’s astonishment when he comes home.
The robins have a secret in the seven-trunked maple. The leaves are so thick no one could guess it except by their vigilance in guarding the tree. They have made a law that no jay, of any age, sex, or size, shall alight in it, nor poke his bill among its branches, nor brush it with his wings in flight; and the law they have promulgated they are ready to enforce. Dark and bloody tales are told of jays—tales of cast-out eggs, of murdered babies, and stolen nests; wherefore no jay shall frequent that maple, “then, since nor henceforward.” Hence, wild curiosity among the jays, agitated caucuses in the pasture oak, and unanimous decision to visit that maple at all hazards, singly, and in groups. They watch till the robins are at some distance, and fly up to the tree on the far side, three or four strong, while the robins, their backs to their threatened castle, drag forth reluctant worms by the middle. They seem absorbed in their hunt, but they know! In the twinkling of an eye they are at the maple, and no jay may abide their coming.
Nor will the robins, after these aggressions, tolerate the jays elsewhere. They may be pecking at the foot of a tree when a jay alights noiselessly in its topmost branch. They see, apparently, through the top of their skulls; and one jay or six, it is all the same to them. They dash up with the élan of a picked regiment, and again the jays shriek and fly. Not a jay has pecked on this lawn this whole afternoon, nor roosted while the robins pecked. Time and again they have sallied in from the pasture, and as often they have dashed squawking back. It is a strenuous life for the blue-coats: but it certainly keeps things peaceful for the rest. The wood-thrushes have ventured near today, and a pair of chippies have come up on the porch, almost to my chair.
Yesterday evening a dozen mocking-birds were here on the lawn, singing singly, answering one another, and joining again and again in choruses that whelmed the grove in melody.