O children, drop the gun, the cruel stone!
Oh, listen to my words,
And hear with me the wounded curlew moan—
Have mercy on the birds!
CELIA THAXTER.
THE SANDPIPER.
Across the narrow beach, we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,—
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his faint and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery;
He has no thought of any wrong,
He scans me with a fearless eye,—
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
CELIA THAXTER.
[Illustration of two birds.]
THE COST OF A HAT.
"What does it cost, this garniture of death?
It costs the life which God alone can give;
It costs dull silence where was music's breath,
It costs dead joy, that foolish pride may live.
Ah, life, and joy, and song, depend upon it,
Are costly trimmmgs for a woman's bonnet!"
MAY RILEY SMITH
Among the cruel things that are done thoughtlessly there is none more common than the wearing of birds' feathers as ornaments in hats. The coloring is often exquisitely soft and delicate, and we do not think, at first, what these beautiful feathers mean.
In the morning some mother bird sings her sweetest songs under your window as she flies forth to look for food for her nestlings. At night she lies wounded or dead and her little ones must starve alone in the nest. Is the pleasure of wearing a dead bird enough to pay for this suffering?