Gray Lady and the Birds: Stories of the Bird Year for Home and School

by Mabel Osgood Wright

On Friday afternoon, when Miss Wilde asked the children to meet her at the hedge half a mile above the schoolhouse at ten o’clock the following morning, so that they might take a short cut across the fields, she noticed that Eliza and Dave hung behind the others, who as usual raced off in different directions toward home, and then Eliza, who was walking beside her, mumbled something about “wishing she hadn’t refused and supposing that it was too late now,” etc.

“Of course, it is not very polite to change one’s mind about an invitation,” said the teacher, “but Gray Lady wrote me last night that if you and Dave should feel differently about wishing to come, I might bring you, but that after to-morrow it would be too late.”

At ten o’clock this bright September morning Gray Lady came out on the porch of the big white house, with the row of columns in front, that was known the country-side over as “the General’s.” There was a wide lawn in front of the house and on either side, arched by old elms, the leaves of which were now turning yellow, but there had been no frost and the flowers in the buds were still bright.

Back of the house was a flower garden, with grape and rose arbours on either side, under which chairs and little tables were placed invitingly. Beyond this garden was a maze of fruit bushes and the young orchard, and beyond this the old orchard, now running half wild, stretched downhill toward the river woods.

A lovelier place could not have been planned for either children or birds, or the people who love both, nor a more perfect place for all three to live together in peace and comfort.

Goldilocks was already out, and her faithful Ann Hughes was pushing her chair to and fro, for when one is eager and impatient it is very hard to have to sit still. Goldilocks was growing stronger every day and could walk a few yards all alone, but it tired her, and her mother thought the excitement of seeing so many children would be enough for one day.

Presently a head, with a cap on it, bobbed up over the last hump in the road below the house, and then another with a ribbon-trimmed hat upon it, the pair belonging to Tommy Todd and Sarah Barnes, who led the procession; and in a few minutes more the entire group had reached the porch and Sarah Barnes was repeating their names to Goldilocks. The five boys rather hung back, but that was to be expected of them.

As a little later Gray Lady led the way down to the garden, she turned to Ann and gave her some directions for the house and was going to push the chair herself when Tommy Todd came forward and seized the handle, saying earnestly, “I can do that first-rate. When dad fell out of the haymow and broke his leg, I used to tote him all round the farm, and never bumped him a bit,—only in ploughed land and off roads you’ve got to go jest so easy.” And to illustrate he raised the front wheels of the chair and bearing on the handles lowered them again as they left the garden path for the rough grass-grown track that led to the orchard. Goldilocks looked up and smiled at him, and then at Sarah and Miss Wilde, who walked one on each side, neither of the four dreaming at that moment how much happier their lives would be because they had met.

“Why, the bars are gone and there is a brand new gate!” exclaimed Sarah Barnes, as they reached the opening in the stone fence that had been spanned by rough-hewn bars ever since she could remember. There, between strong cedar posts, hung a rustic gate, and above it was a double arch of the same material, into which the word BIRDLAND was interwoven in small sticks of the same wood.

“That is a surprise that Jacob Hughes made for to-day, for this is my birthday party, you see, and some day mother is going to have a flagpole for Birdland with an eagle on top. Jacob is Ann’s brother,” she continued by way of explanation. “He used to be a sailor once, but now he’s come to live with us always. He is a carpenter, too, and he can whittle almost anything with his knife, and he makes the most beautiful bird-houses. I should really like to live in one myself—that is, of course, if I were a bird!”