I was wrong about the Phoebe bird;
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard;
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
Came from one throat.
As the season advanced our May songs became less melodious until finally our music was merely a metallic but pleasant, "chink, chink," and we knew we would soon be putting on our new fall attire, as toward the close of the summer our family exchange their pretty black-and-white suits, so much admired, for a becoming yellowish-brown one. The different flocks were also now arranging for their regular winter trip to the sunny Southland, where their winters were spent.
I was very glad to know that we bobolinks were to travel only in the daytime, as that would afford us younger ones a better opportunity to see the country. The return trip to the North is always made by night. A great many people have wondered why we do this, and those who are interested in our habits have tried to find out; but it is a secret the birds have never yet divulged, and probably never will.
The blue jays were going to remain behind, for the winters which we dreaded so much had no terrors for them. Sometimes when we were preening our feathers under the radiant skies near the Southern gulf, I thought of our old neighbors the jays, and fancied them in their bleak Northern home flitting about in the tops of the leafless trees, swayed by the icy winds from the upper lakes, and with perhaps but little to eat. I would not have exchanged places with them for the world. But my older comrades assured me the jays were not in need of my sympathy or pity. They liked the invigorating cold and chattered merrily in the desolate boughs and enjoyed many a nice meal from under the melting snow. The crimson dogwood berries, standing out like rosettes of coral, at which they liked to peck, also furnished them an aesthetic and sumptuous feast. Much more to be dreaded than the winter's cold was the cruel sportsman, said my comrades.
The day of our departure came. The concourse of birds setting out on their annual journeys was immense, and oh, what joy it was to soar aloft on buoyant pinion high up in the blue sky, over housetops and tops of trees, skimming along above rushing waters or tranquil streams in quiet meadows. Mere existence was a keen delight. The sense of freedom, of lightness, of airiness, was gloriously exhilarating, a delicious sensation known only to the feathered tribes of all God's creation.
Our trip took us across some densely wooded mountains, where we rested for a time. A thick undergrowth of young saplings prevented any roads, and only occasional narrow footpaths showed that people sometimes passed that way.
The mountain was grand in its loneliness; but doubtless was a desolate spot to the settlers, whose cabins were scattered at long distances from each other in the depths of the wood. I could imagine how cut off from the whole world the women and children in these cabins would feel, for it is natural for human beings to love society. The perpetual stillness must have been hard to bear when months sometimes passed away, especially in the winter season, without their getting a glimpse of other human faces.
The mountains were full of wildcats too, which made their situation worse, as these fierce animals were frequently known to attack men as savagely as wolves do. One day while we were there two travelers camped under the tree where our family was roosting. They had evidently had a hard time making their way through the tangled undergrowth, for as one of the men flung himself down on the ground and stretched himself out at full length, he exclaimed peevishly:
"Well, I don't want any more such experiences. I'm dead tired; my face is all scratched with the thorns and bushes; and I haven't seen a newspaper for a week. If the railroad company needs any more work of this kind done, they must get somebody else."
"Fiddle-dee-dee! You mustn't be so easily discouraged," answered the other young man, who had already set to work scraping up dry chips and pieces of bark to make a fire, "Think of these poor mountaineers who stay here all their lives. Your little tramp of a few days is nothing to what they do all the time and never think of complaining. The half of them are too poor to own a mule. They eat hog and hominy the year around, and are thankful to get it. Their clothes are fearfully and wonderfully made, but for all that they don't give up and think life isn't worth living."