Before dark I looked for the young birds, and found them on a twig about a man's height from the ground, sitting side by side and cunningly concealed by hemlock spray. When I approached, three little heads turned and six bright eyes looked on me, but not with fear. I suppose Wabbles had told them all about the hermit, and they knew I would not harm them.
The next morning Wabbles returned, and Mrs. Wabbles was with him. She at once took charge of her babies, and tried to entice them away. But Wabbles, the sly rogue, hopped into the dooryard, and I heard him calling, "Tsp, tsp," and the little fellows heard him, too, and, remembering the food, flew to him. Mrs. Wabbles was obliged to give in.
Wabbles is not wholly unknown to notoriety. Many of the summer residents that visited my cabin had made his acquaintance, and the story of the little bird that would desert the fields for a hermit-life in the woods has doubtless often been told in many a distant home.
Before the birds had departed in migration, Wabbles's little wife had become contented and happy in the cabin dooryard. She was of a confiding nature, and in a remarkably short time would take food from my hand. Wabbles and his family lingered about the cabin until the thermometer registered ten above. The fifteenth of March Wabbles returned to my dooryard. His wife and family appeared a week later.
For some reason, known only to bird-life, the male birds of most species return from the south about a week before the females and young birds.
When the nesting-season approached Wabbles and his wife located their family in a less wooded growth, on the road to the city. The old birds returned to the dooryard, and Mrs. Wabbles made a nest where a little patch of grass had sprung up between the ledges.
Wabbles and I, during the summer, renewed the friendly relations that had existed when he led the life of a bachelor. He would come to me for food at all hours of the day. When I gave him his favorite food, cookie, he would reward me with a song. He would fly to a limb about four feet above my head and sing one song, and then fly away to his mate. Sometimes I could coax him to repeat the song by talking to him earnestly and rapidly. My visitors thought that the song was strange, and often it was suggested that it was on account of the nearness of the singer. But the song was not the one with which they were familiar. It was a new song, low, sweet, and tender, with nothing in it to remind one of the loud, joyous carol heard in the springtime.
Wabbles called me at daybreak every morning. He was jealous of the other birds, and drove them away, when he thought they were too friendly with me. A catbird and a veery hopped about my hammock mornings, and Wabbles attacked them so furiously that it made me wonder why they did not keep away for good. Wabbles did not allow other birds to eat in the dooryard until he had satisfied his appetite. Visitors asserted that he was a tyrant, but I did not look at his warlike actions in that light. He thought that he owned the dooryard, and other birds were trespassers.
Near my cabin there is a notice posted forbidding trespass, and it alludes sarcastically to "wood-cutting thieves." This sign was put up because sometimes dead, worthless wood was carried away from the lot. Wabbles is willing that the birds may enjoy the things in the dooryard after he is satisfied, but the human fellow preferred to let the wood rot on the ground.
The feathered biped's humanity contrasts sharply with the human biped's brutality.