SPARROW.
The chewink called him into the bushes. I suppose he intended to give him an introduction to his family. The next day the sparrow came into the dooryard alone. He made for the bread and did not look at me. I tried to catch him, but he hopped into the bushes, apparently filled with terror. I think that old chewink had told the sparrow that I was a very bad man. The old fellow might have been jealous, and had frightened the young sparrow, so that he would fly from me in wild alarm. The next time the sparrow visited the yard the chewink was with him. They departed together, and three days later I saw the sparrow near the old barn. He was with other sparrows, but he knew me, and, more than that, he had lost his wildness. He would eat from my hand. It was evident that the chewink had piloted him three-fourths of a mile to his friends. The sparrow had to hop all the way. The old chewink must have exercised much patience to have accompanied the sparrow in such a slow way. How did the chewink know where to take the sparrow? Did he do a deed of charity by restoring the lost one to his friends, or did he entice him away for selfish purposes? It is barely possible that he might think that the sparrow would recover his wing power, and would go out and bring in his uncles and his aunts, so took him out by devious ways that could not be held in the memory.
XI.
SOME OF THE WILD THINGS
On Sunday, May 30, 1897, while the church bells were calling saint and sinner to worship in the city of Gloucester, and a catbird's blithe music, supplemented by the silvery bells of a veery, was calling me to worship in my cabin dooryard, I turned to the path that leads to Magnolia Swamp.
Two years before, on the west side of the swamp, I had discovered a woodpecker's sap orchard. For two seasons I had carefully noted the work of the woodpeckers in their curious method of tapping trees, and I desired now to add to my knowledge by a few hours of observation.
"FOUND HIS OWLSHIP ON A LOW LIMB."
It was a glorious morning, bright with sunshine, tempered by a crisp air. It was one of the few sunshiny days rescued from a cold, rainy spring month. The trees were forward, and for the most part covered with full-grown leaves. The white oaks were late, as usual, their leaves were tiny, and at a distance looked to be a silvery gray in the sunshine. The hillsides west of Magnolia Swamp were lighted up by this immature gray foliage, while here and there the dark green of the pines afforded a pleasing contrast.
I found the sap orchard deserted. The trees, red maples and canoe-birches, were dead or dying. The sapsuckers and their self-invited guests, the humming-birds, had drained the life-blood of their helpless victims. All of the maples were still standing, but many of the gray birches had been broken off by the wind just below the belt of punctures.
