“When the Chickadee, who has persistently told us his name all winter, and has assured us also in the darkest weather that it was ‘day-day-day,’ changes his call for the flute-like spring song of ‘Phewe-Phe-wee,’ clear as the wind blowing through a reed, we know that at last the springtide has really turned. Chickadee occasionally gives this note in autumn as if in anticipation, but it is really a love-song of tender accent.
“Another spring sign comes to us in April, a sign to be seen. It comes out of a clear sky and has all the mystery about it that still shrouds the bird migrations. Spring and fall I see it, but it always fills me with awe. This morning I stood out in the open meadow below the orchard, looking at the sky to see if the clouds were going to break away, or if it was to be a day of April showers. To the southwest a curious fine black bar appeared high up against the clouds. Quickly it drew nearer, and I saw what seemed to be a great letter that moved rapidly and yet kept its shape printed on the sky,—a letter V coming toward me, point on. In another minute the line proved to be made of separate marks, then each mark developed a long neck and rapidly moving wings.”
Tommy Todd could stand it no longer; without giving the usual school “hand up” warning he cried out, “The V was Wild Geese, with the wise old gander that leads them for the point, and maybe if he wanted them to shift and change their way, he gave a big honk, honk, like the automobiles when they turn the sharp corner at the foot of our hill.
“We saw Wild Geese yesterday, grandpa and I; they were flying so low over the mill-pond that grandpa said maybe they had been resting somewhere. They do stop in fall sometimes, but in spring they generally go right over in a big hurry. This time I could see their feathers pretty well, black, gray, and light underneath, and a white mark around the neck as if it was tied up for a sore throat. Grandpa says he shot one once that was a yard long, but their necks looked all of that. How far away do they have to go before they can stop to nest, please, Gray Lady?”
“They nest only in our most northern states, and from there up through British America; but as the country is settled they have to shift their haunts very often, for you can well imagine that a colony, even in the nesting season, would have but little peace if hunters could reach it easily. These great birds on their journeys are one of the most thrilling sights that everyday people can see, for they travel the thousands of miles that separate their summer and winter homes, straight through the night as well as the day, without chart or compass, but with the same lack of fear and unfailing directness as a train would follow the rails upon the road-bed.
“We hear and read stories of Nature that are inventions, and could not have happened because they are not according to the plan of creation,—so the people who tell these instead of being clever are really very stupid,—but not one of these is as wonderful as the simple truth, or as awe-inspiring as the flight of Wild Geese that goes on before our sight year after year in the April sky, or that we know by their cries and the rush of wings is passing overhead in the gloom of a wild and stormy night.
WILD GEESE
A far, strange sound through the night,
A dauntless and resolute cry,
Clear in the tempest’s despite,