Little Brothers of the Air

by Olive Thorne Miller

Another as well as I heard that call, and he responded. He was exactly like her, with the addition of a pair of black "mustachios," and it may be she told him that the strange object under the maple had not moved for half an hour, and was undoubtedly some new device of man's, made of wood perhaps, for he did not hesitate on the door-step, but plunged in at once, and devoted himself to the business in hand, clearing out, while she vanished.

But though I watched this domestic scene with pleasure, and saw and noted every feather that appeared about me, the tree-tops had my closest attention, for there I was certain I should find my rare singer. Hours passed, the shadows grew long, and sadly and slowly I took my way homewards, wishing I had a charm against fatigue, mosquitoes, and other terrors of the night, and could stay out till he came.

All through the month of June I haunted that wood, seeking the unknown. Every evening I heard him, but no sight came to gladden my eyes. I grew almost to believe it merely "a wandering voice," and I went home with my longing unsatisfied.

When next the month of roses came around, I betook myself to a spur of the Hoosac Mountains to see my birds. The evening of my arrival, as the twilight gathered, rose the call of my witching voice.

"What bird is that?" I demanded, with the usual result; no one knew. (A chapter might be written on the ignorance of country people of their own birds and plants. A chapter, did I say? A book, a dozen books, the country is full of material.)

"I shall find that bird," I said, "if I stay a year." In the morning I set out. The song had come from the belt of trees that hang lovingly over a little stream on its merry way down the mountain, and thither I turned my steps. Now, my hostess had a drove of twenty cows, wild, head-tossing creatures,—"Holsteins" they were,—and having half a dozen pastures, they were changed about from day to day. Driving them every morning was almost as exciting as the stampede of a drove of horses, and it seemed as if they could never reconcile themselves to the idiosyncrasies of the American woman. The pasture where they were shut for the day was as sacred from my foot as if it were filled with mad dogs. My mere appearance near the fence was a signal for a headlong race to the spot to see what on earth I was doing now.

I went into the field, looking cautiously about, and satisfying myself that the too curious foreigners were not within sight, found a comfortable seat on a bank overlooking the whole beautiful view of the brook and its waving green borders, and commanding the approach to my side of the field.

This time again my mysterious singer proved to be among the "later" ones, and after spending an hour or two there, I rose to go back, when in passing a thick-growing evergreen tree, I saw that I had created a panic. There was a flutter of wings, there were cries, and on the tree, in plain sight, the towhee bunting and his brown-clad spouse. Of course there must be some reason for this reckless display; I sought the cause, and found a nest, a mere depression in the ground, and one sorry-looking youngster, the sole survivor of the perils of the situation. Over that one nestling they were as concerned as the proverbial hen with one chicken, and they flitted about in distress while I looked at their half-fledged bantling, and hoped it was a singer to ring the delightful silver-toned tremolo that had charmed me that morning.

That evening, listening on the piazza to the usual twilight chorus, the wood-thrush far-off, the towhee from the pasture, the robins all around, I heard suddenly the "quee-o" of a bird I knew, so near that I started, and my eyes fell directly upon him, standing on the lowest limb of a dead tree, not ten feet from me.

He was so near I did not need my glass, nor indeed did I dare move a finger, lest he take flight. Several times he uttered his soft call, and then, while my eyes were fastened upon him, he began quivering with excitement, his wings lifted a little, and in a clear though low tone he uttered the long-sought song. I held my breath, and he repeated it, each time lower than before. Even at that distance it sounded far off, and doubtless many times in the woods, when I looked for it afar, it may have been over my head.