“Next to cats I’m most put out with red squirrels and English Sparrows. The first are sneaks; they take eggs, little birds, and all. They make free with young gray squirrels, too, and don’t spare their next-door neighbours even, while Sparrows hustle and do much likewise, taking the nesting-places of Swallows and Bluebirds and Jenny Wrens, and fighting and wrastling with anything smaller than themselves, breaking up nests and pitching out young ones until I just can’t stand it! Now it’s woe to any of these three that comes across my path. Maybe some folks will say I’m cruel. Will those folks let mice and rats eat their groceries and not kill them? and by themselves rats and mice are decent, clean animals.
“Not they; and to us that love our tree birds, cats and red squirrels and English Sparrows are hateful as are rats and mice, and I warrant you’ll not think I’m going too far when I say it, ma’am!”
“No, Jacob, you are right, though I’m sorry to say so,” answered Gray Lady, still looking at the feathers. “The cat tribe is by nature cruel. All animals kill for food, but the cat tortures before she kills. I used to defend the keeping of pet cats until one that I had trusted bit me through the hand at a moment when I was petting her, without the slightest provocation. I never knew a dog to bite his master unprovoked—unless he was ill—and even if we love our cats, we should be unselfish, for birds are of value to the country at large and cats are not. Only, I insist upon this, that the killing, even of vermin, is a matter for the grown-up, and some one with authority should be appointed to do it. It should not be left to the young and irresponsible, just as the punishing of human criminals is not a matter for the people in general to decide and put in execution.
“Yes, boys,” Gray Lady continued, “I wish every one would feel responsible in this matter. No farmer will raise more poultry or calves or colts than he can feed and then turn them loose to either starve or prey upon his neighbours. Why, then, should he allow his cats to straggle about and kill the song-birds that even much money cannot buy or replace? But come, we must go on; the others will be wondering where we are.
“I want you all to look at something at the lane end,—that great beech tree with the gray streaked trunk. Do you see the sunbeams playing checkers on the bark, this side? Do you know what this means? I will tell you. It means that the tide of winter is turning toward spring, that February is here. We should not know it unless we looked at the day in the calendar. It is quite as cold as it has been all through the winter, but the days are growing longer, and now, once more, the sun slips by the barn in the morning and lies upon the beech trunk that has been in shadow all winter long.
“My father showed me this when I was a child; and whenever I grew tired of winter, the earth seemed dead, and it seemed as if spring would never come back, he would say, ‘Go up the lane and see if the sun’s message is written on the beech tree.’ So, while it is still winter here, down in the South the flocks of Robins and Song Sparrows and Bluebirds are reading the sun’s message, and, far away as spring seems, they are planning their return. Meanwhile we have the brave winter birds to keep us cheerful. See the flock of Juncoes alighting yonder. They are as plump and freshly plumed as new arrivals in spring dress. This Snowbird is no sloven, he always wears a trim dress-suit.”
Better far, ah yes! than no bird
Is the ever-present snowbird;
Gayly tripping, dainty creature,
When the snow hides every feature;