A KENTUCKY CARDINAL _A Story_

by James Lane Allen

Dedication

This to her from one who in childhood used to stand at the windowsof her room and watch for the Cardinal among the snow-buried cedars. 

I

All this New-year's Day of 1850 the sun shone cloudless but wroughtno thaw. Even the landscapes of frost on the window-panes did notmelt a flower, and the little trees still keep their silvery boughsarched high above the jeweled avenues. During the afternoon a leanhare limped twice across the lawn, and there was not a creaturestirring to chase it. Now the night is bitter cold, with no soundsoutside but the cracking of the porches as they freeze tighter. Even the north wind seems grown too numb to move. I had determinedto convert its coarse, big noise into something sweet--as mayoften be done by a little art with the things of this life--and sostretched a horse-hair above the opening between the window sashes;but the soul of my harp has departed. I hear but the comfortableroar and snap of hickory logs, at long intervals a deeper breathfrom the dog stretched on his side at my feet, and the cricketsunder the hearth-stones. They have to thank me for that nook. Onechill afternoon I came upon a whole company of them on the westernslope of a woodland mound, so lethargic that I thumped them repeatedlybefore they could so much as get their senses. There was a branchnear by, and the smell of mint in the air, so that had they beenyoung Kentuckians one might have had a clew to the situation. Withan ear for winter minstrelsy, I brought two home in a handkerchief, and assigned them an elegant suite of apartments under a loosebrick. 

But the finest music in the room is that which streams out to theear of the spirit in many an exquisite strain from the hanging shelfof books on the opposite wall. Every volume there is an instrumentwhich some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music, as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light. Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the silken-softleaves of poppies had been made vocal and poured into the ear. 

Towards dark, having seen to the comfort of a household of kind, faithful fellow-beings, whom man in his vanity calls the loweranimals, I went last to walk under the cedars in the front yard, listening to that music which is at once so cheery and so sad--thelow chirping of birds at dark winter twilights as they gather infrom the frozen fields, from snow-buried shrubbery and hedge-rows, and settle down for the night in the depths of the evergreens, theonly refuge from their enemies and shelter from the blast. But thisevening they made no ado about their home-coming. To-day perhapsnone had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird isforced by hunger to leave the covert of his cedars, since he, onthe naked or white landscapes of winter, offers the most far-shiningand beautiful mark for Death. I stepped across to the tree inwhich a pair of these birds roost and shook it, to make sure theywere at home, and felt relieved when they fluttered into the nextwith the quick startled notes they utter when aroused. 

The longer I live here, the better satisfied I am in having pitchedmy earthly camp-fire, gypsylike, on the edge of a town, keeping iton one side, and the green fields, lanes, and woods on the other. Each, in turn, is to me as a magnet to the needle. At timesthe needle of my nature points towards the country. On that sideeverything is poetry. I wander over field and forest, and throughme runs a glad current of feeling that is like a clear brook acrossthe meadows of May. At others the needle veers round, and I goto town--to the massed haunts of the highest animal and cannibal. That way nearly everything is prose. I can feel the prose risingin me as I step along, like hair on the back of a dog, long beforeany other dogs are in sights. And, indeed, the case is much thatof a country dog come to town, so that growls are in order atevery corner. The only being in the universe at which I have eversnarled, or with which I have rolled over in the mud and foughtlike a common cur, is Man. 

Among my neighbors who furnish me much of the plain prose of life, the nearest hitherto has been a bachelor named Jacob Mariner. Icalled him my rain-cow, because the sound of his voice awokeapprehensions of falling weather. A visit from him was an endlessdrizzle. For Jacob came over to expound his minute symptoms; andhad everything that he gave out on the subject of human ailmentsbeen written down, it must have made a volume as large, as solemn, and as inconvenient as a family Bible. My other nearest neighborlives across the road--a widow, Mrs. Walters. I call Mrs. Waltersmy mocking-bird, because she reproduces by what is truly a divinearrangement of the throat the voices of the town. When she fluttersacross to the yellow settee under the grape-vine and balances herselflightly with expectation, I have but to request that she favor mewith a little singing, and soon the air is vocal with every noteof the village songsters. After this, Mrs. Walters usually beginsto flutter in a motherly way around the subject of _my_ symptoms. 

Naturally it has been my wish to bring about between this rain-cowand mocking-bird the desire to pair with one another. For, if aman always wanted to tell his symptoms and a woman always wishedto hear about them, surely a marriage compact on the basis of sucha passion ought to open up for them a union of overflowing andindestructible felicity. They should associate as perfectly as thecompensating metals of a pendulum, of which the one contracts asthe other expands. And then I should be a little happier myself. But the perversity of life! Jacob would never confide in Mrs. Walter. Mrs. Walters would never inquire for Jacob. 

Now poor Jacob is dead, of no complaint apparently, and with so fewsymptoms that even the doctors did not know what was the matter, and the upshot of this talk is that his place has been sold, andI am to have new neighbors. What a disturbance to a man living onthe edge of a quiet town!

Tidings of the calamity came to-day from Mrs. Walters, who flewover and sang--sang even on a January afternoon--in a manner torival her most vociferous vernal execution. But the poor creaturewas so truly distressed that I followed her to the front gate, andwe twittered kindly at each other over the fence, and ruffled ourplumage with common disapproval. It is marvellous how a member ofher sex will conceive dislike of people that she has never seen;but birds are sensible of heat or cold long before either arrives, and it may be that this mocking-bird feels something wrong at thequill end of her feathers. 

II

Mrs. Walters this morning with more news touching our incomingneighbors. Whenever I have faced towards this aggregation of unwelcomeindividuals, I have beheld it moving towards me as a thick graymist, shutting out nature beyond. Perhaps they are approachingthis part of the earth like comet that carries its tail before it, and I am already enveloped in a disturbing, befogging nebulosity. 

There is still no getting the truth, but it appears that they area family of consequence in their way--which, of course, may bea very poor way. Mrs. Margaret Cobb, mother, lately bereaved ofher husband, Joseph Cobb, who fell among the Kentucky boys at thebattle of Buena Vista. A son, Joseph Cobb, now cadet at West Point, with a desire to die like his father, but destined to die--whoknows?--in a war that may break out in this country about thenegroes. 

While not reconciled, I am resigned. The young man when at homemay wish to practise the deadly vocation of an American soldier ofthe period over the garden fence at my birds, in which case he andI could readily fight a duel, and help maintain an honored customof the commonwealth. The older daughter will sooner or later turnloose on my heels one of her pack of blue dogs. If this shouldbefall me in the spring, and I survive the dog, I could retortwith a dish of strawberries and a copy of "Lalla Rookh"; if in thefall, with a basket of grapes and Thomson's "Seasons, " after whichthere would be no further exchange of hostilities. The youngerdaughter, being a school-girl, will occasionally have to be subduedwith green apples and salt. The mother could easily give trouble;or she might be one of those few women to know whom is to know thebest that there is in all this faulty world. 

The middle of February. The depths of winter reached. Thoughtful, thoughtless words--the depths of winter. Everything gone inwardand downward from surface and summit, Nature at low tide. In itstime will come the height of summer, when the tides of life riseto the tree-tops, or be dashed as silvery insect spray all but tothe clouds. So bleak a season touches my concern for birds, whichnever seem quite at home in this world; and the winter has beenmost lean and hungry for them. Many snows have fallen--snows thatare as raw cotton spread over their breakfast-table, and cuttingoff connection between them and its bounties. Next summer I mustlet the weeds grow up in my garden, so that they may have a betterchance for seeds above the stingy level of the universal white. Oflate I have opened a pawnbroker's shop for my hard-pressed brethrenin feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for everyborrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthlyinstalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seedfor a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs inan orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices?And to-day, also, I ordered from a nursery-man more trees of holly, juniper, and fir, since the storm-beaten cedars will have to comedown. For in Kentucky, when the forest is naked, and every shruband hedge-row bare, what would become of our birds in the universalrigor and exposure of the world if there were no evergreens--nature'shostelries for the homeless ones? Living in the depths of these, they can keep snow, ice, and wind at bay; prying eyes cannot watchthem, nor enemies so well draw near; cones or seed or berries aretheir store; and in these untrodden chambers each can have thesacred company of his mate. But wintering here has terrible riskswhich few run. Scarcely in autumn have the leaves begun to dropfrom their high perches silently downward when the birds begin todrop away from the bare boughs silently southward. Lo! some morningthe leaves are on the ground, and the birds have vanished. Thespecies that remain, or that come to us then, wear the hues ofthe season, and melt into the tone of Nature's background--blues, grays, browns, with touches of white on tail and breast and wingfor coming flecks of snow. 

Save only him--proud, solitary stranger in our unfriendly land--thefiery grosbeak. Nature in Kentucky has no wintry harmonies for him. He could find these only among the tufts of the October sumac, orin the gum-tree when it stands a pillar of red twilight fire inthe dark November woods, or in the far depths of the crimson sunsetskies, where, indeed, he seems to have been nested, and whence tohave come as a messenger of beauty, bearing on his wings the lightof his diviner home. 

With almost everything earthly that he touches this high heraldof the trees is in contrast. Among his kind he is without a peer. Even when the whole company of summer voyagers have sailed back toKentucky, singing and laughing and kissing one another under theenormous green umbrella of Nature's leaves, he still is beyond themall in loveliness. But when they have been wafted away again tobrighter skies and to soft islands over the sea, and he is leftalone on the edge of that Northern world which he has dared invadeand inhabit, it is then, amid black clouds and drifting snows, that the gorgeous cardinal stands forth in the ideal picture ofhis destiny. For it is than that his beauty I most conspicuous, and that Death, lover of the peerless, strikes at him from afar. So that he retires to the twilight solitude of his wild fortress. Let him even show his noble head and breast at a slit in its greenwindow-shades, and a ray flashes from it to the eye of a cat; lethim, as spring comes on, burst out in desperation and mount to thetree-tops which he loves, and his gleaming red coat betrays him tothe poised hawk as to a distant sharpshooter; in the barn near byan owl is waiting to do his night marketing at various tender-meatstalls; and, above all, the eye and heart of man are his diurnal andnocturnal foe. What wonder if he is so shy, so rare, so secluded, this flame-colored prisoner in dark-green chambers, who has onlyto be seen or heard and Death adjusts an arrow. No vast Southernswamps or forest of pine here into which he may plunge. If heshuns man in Kentucky, he must haunt the long lonely river valleyswhere the wild cedars grow. If he comes into this immediateswarming pastoral region, where the people, with ancestral love ofprivacy, and not from any kindly thought of him, plant evergreensaround their country homes, he must live under the very guns andamid the pitfalls of the enemy. Surely, could the first male ofthe species have foreseen how, through the generations of his raceto come, both their beauty and their song, which were meant toannounce them to Love, would also announce them to Death, he musthave blanched snow-white with despair and turned as mute as a stone. Is it this flight from the inescapable just behind that makes thesinging of the red-bird thoughtful and plaintive, and, indeed, nearly all the wild sounds of nature so like the outcry of thedoomed? He will sit for a long time silent and motionless in theheart of a cedar, as if absorbed in the tragic memories of hisrace. Then, softly, wearily, he will call out to you and to thewhole world: _Peace_. . _Peace_. . _Peace_. . _Peace_. . _Peace_. . !--themost melodious sigh that ever issued from the clefts of a dungeon. 

For color and form, brilliant singing, his very enemies, and thebold nature he has never lost, I have long been most interested inthis bird. Every year several pairs make their appearance aboutmy place. This winter especially I have been feeding a pair; andthere should be finer music in the spring, and a lustier brood insummer. 

III

March has gone like its winds. The other night as I lay awake withthat yearning which often beats within, there fell from the upperair the notes of the wild gander as he wedged his way onward byfaith, not by sight, towards his distant bourn. I rose and, throwingthe unseen and unseeing explorer, startled, as a half-asleep soldiermight be startled by the faint bugle-call of his commander, blownto him from the clouds. What far-off lands, streaked with mortaldawn, does he believe in? In what soft sylvan water will he buryhis tired breast? Always when I hear his voice, often when not, I too desire to be up and gone out of these earthly marshes wherehunts the darker Fowler--gone to some vast, pure, open sea, where, one by one, my scattered kind, those whom I love and those who loveme, will arrive in safety, there to be together. 

March is a month when the needle of my nature dips towards thecountry. I am away, greeting everything as it wakes out of wintersleep, stretches arms upward and legs downward, and drinks gobletafter goblet of young sunshine. I must find the dark green snowdrop, and sometimes help to remove from her head, as she lifts it slowlyfrom her couch, the frosted nightcap, which the old Nurse would stillinsist that she should wear. The pale green tips of daffodils area thing of beauty. There is the sun-struck brook of the field, underneath the thin ice of which drops form and fall, form andfall, like big round silvery eyes that grow bigger and brighterwith astonishment that you should laugh at them as they vanish. Butmost I love to see Nature do her spring house-cleaning in Kentucky, with the rain-clouds for her water-buckets and the winds for herbrooms. What an amount of drenching and sweeping she can do in aday! How she dashes pailful and pailful into every corner, tillthe whole earth is as clean as a new floor! Another day she attacksthe piles of dead leaves, where they have lain since last October, and scatters them in a trice, so that every cranny may be sunned andaired. Or, grasping her long brooms by the handles, she will gointo the woods and beat the icicles off the big trees as a housewifewould brush down cobwebs; so that the released limbs straightenup like a man who has gotten out of debt, and almost say to you, joyfully, "Now, then, we are all right again!" This done, shebegins to hang up soft new curtains at the forest windows, and tospread over her floor a new carpet of an emerald loveliness suchas no mortal looms could ever have woven. And then, at last, shesends out invitations through the South, and even to some tropicallands, for the birds to come and spend the summer in Kentucky. Theinvitations are sent out in March, and accepted in April and May, and by June her house is full of visitors. 

Not the eyes alone love Nature in March. Every other sense hiesabroad. My tongue hunts for the last morsel of wet snow on thenorthern root of some aged oak. As one goes early to a concert-hallwith a passion even for the preliminary tuning of the musicians, so my ear sits alone in the vast amphitheatre of Nature and waitsfor the earliest warble of the blue-bird, which seems to start upsomewhere behind the heavenly curtains. And the scent of spring, is it not the first lyric of the nose--that despised poet of thesenses?

But this year I have hardly glanced at the small choice edition ofNature's spring verses. This by reason of the on-coming Cobbs, atthe mere mention of whom I feel as though I were plunged up to myeyes in a vat of the prosaic. Some days ago workmen went into thehouse and all but scoured the very memory of Jacob off the face ofthe earth. Then there has been need to quiet Mrs. Walters. 

Mrs. Walters does not get into our best society; so that the townis to her like a pond to a crane: she wades round it, going in asfar as she can, and snatches up such small fry as come shorewardfrom the middle. In this way lately I have gotten hints of whatis stirring in the vasty deeps of village opinion. 

Mrs. Cobb is charged, among other dreadful things, with havingordered of the town manufacturer a carriage that is to be as fineas President Taylor's, and with marching into church preceded bya servant, who bears her prayer-book on a velvet cushion. Whatif she rode in Cinderella's coach, or had her prayer-book carriedbefore her on the back of a Green River turtle? But to her sexshe promises to be an invidious Christian. I am rather disturbedby the gossip regarding the elder daughter. But this is so conflictingthat one impression is made only to be effaced by another. 

A week ago their agent wanted to buy my place. I was so outragedthat I got down my map of Kentucky to see where these peculiarbeings originate. They come from a little town I the northwesterncorner of the State, on the Ohio River, named Henderson--named fromthat Richard Henderson who in the year 1775 bought about half ofKentucky from the Cherokees, and afterwards, as president of hispurchase, addressed the first legislative assembly ever held in theWest, seated under a big elm-tree outside the wall of Boonsboroughfort. These people must be his heirs, or they would never havetried to purchase my few Sabine acres. It is no surprise to discoverthat they are from the Green River country. They must bathe oftenin that stream. I suppose they wanted my front yard to sow it inpenny-royal, the characteristic growth of those districts. Theysurely distil it and use it as a perfume on their handkerchiefs. Itwas perhaps from the founder of this family that Thomas Jeffersongot authority for his statement that the Ohio is the most beautifulriver in the world--unless, indeed, the President formed that notionof the Ohio upon lifting his eyes to it from the contemplation ofGreen River. Henderson! Green River region! To this town and tothe blue-grass country as Boeotia to Attica in the days of Pericles. Hereafter I shall call these people my Green River Boeotians. 

A few days later their agent again, a little frigid, very urgent--thistime to buy me out on my own terms, _any_ terms. But what was backof all this I inquired. I did not know these people, had never donethem a favor. Why, then, such determination to have me removed?Why such bitterness, vindictiveness, ungovernable passion?

That was the point, he replied. This family had never wronged _me_. I had never even seen _them_. Yet they had heard of nothing butmy intense dislike of them and opposition to their becoming myneighbors. They could not forego their plans, but they were quitewilling to give me the chance of leaving their vicinity, on whateverI might regard the most advantageous terms. 

Oh, my mocking-bird, my mocking-bird! When you have been sittingon _other_ front porches, have you, by the divine law of your being, been reproducing _your_ notes as though they were _mine_, and evenpouring forth the little twitter that was meant for your privateear?

As March goes out, two things more and more I hear--the cardinalhas begun to mount to the bare tops of the locust-trees and scatterhis notes downward, and over the way the workmen whistle and sing. The bird is too shy to sit in any tree on that side of the yard. But his eye and ear are studying them curiously. Sometimes I evenfancy that he sings to them with a plaintive sort of joy, as thoughhe were saying, "Welcome--go away!"

IV

The Cobbs will be the death of me before they get here. The reportspread that they and I had already had a tremendous quarrel, andthat, rather than live beside them, I had sold them my place. Thisset flowing towards me for days a stream of people, like a line ofants passing to and from the scene of a terrific false alarm. Ihad nothing to do but sit perfectly still and let each ant, as itran up, touch me with its antennae, get the counter-sign, and turnback to the village ant-hill. Not all, however. Some remainedto hear me abuse the Cobbs; or, counting on my support, fell toabusing the Cobbs themselves. When I made not a word of reply, except to assure them that I really had not quarrelled with theCobbs, had nothing against the Cobbs, and was immensely delightedthat the Cobbs were coming, they went away amazingly cool andindignant. And for days I continued to hear such things attributedto me that, had that young West-Pointer been in the neighborhood, and known how to shoot, he must infallibly have blown my head offme, as any Kentucky gentleman would. Others of my visitors, havingheard that I was not to sell my place, were so glad of it that theywalked around my garden and inquired for my health and the prospectfor fruit. For the season has come when the highest animalbegins to pay me some attention. During the winter, having littleto contribute to the community, I drop from communal notice. Butthere are certain ladies who bow sweetly to me when my roses andhoneysuckles burst into bloom; a fat old cavalier of the Southbegins to shake hands with me when my asparagus bed begins to sendup its tender stalks; I am in high favor with two or three youngladies at the season of lilies and sweet-pea; there is one old soulwho especially loves rhubarb pies, which she makes to look likelittle latticed porches in front of little green skies, and it isshe who remembers me and my row of pie-plant; and still another, who knows better than cat-birds when currants are ripe. Above all, there is a preacher, who thinks my sins are as scarlet so long asmy strawberries are, and plants himself in my bed at that time toreason with me of judgment to come; and a doctor, who gets despondentabout my constitution in pear-time--after which my health seems toreturn, but never my pears. 

So that, on the whole, from May till October I am the bright sideof the moon, and the telescopes of the town are busy observingmy phenomena; after which it is as though I had rolled over on mydark side, there to lie forgotten till once more the sun enteredthe proper side of the zodiac. But let me except always the fewsteadily luminous spirits I know, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. If any one wishes to become famous ina community, let him buy a small farm on the edge of it and cultivatefruits, berries, and flowers, which he freely gives away or letsbe freely taken. 

All this has taken freely of my swift April days. Besides, I havemade me a new side-porch, made it myself, for I like to hammer anddrive things home, and because the rose on the old one had rottedit from post to shingle. And then, when I had tacked the rose inplace again, the little old window opening above it made that sideof my house look like a boy in his Saturday hat and Sunday breeches. So in went a large new window; and now these changes have mysteriouslyoffended Mrs. Walter, who says the town is laughing at me fortrying to outdo the Cobbs. The highest animal is the only one whois divinely gifted with such noble discernment. But I am not sorryto have my place look its best. When they see it, they will perhapsunderstand why I was not to be driven out by a golden cracker ontheir family whip. They could not have bought my little woodlandpasture, where for a generation has been picnic and muster andFourth-of-July ground, and where the brave fellows met to volunteerfor the Mexican war. They could not have bought even the heap ofbrush back of my wood-pile, where the brown thrashers build. 

V

In May I am of the earth earthy. The soul loses its wild whitepinions; the heart puts forth its short, powerful wings, heavy withheat and color, that flutter, but do not lift it off the ground. The month comes and goes, and not once do I think of lifting myeyes to the stars. The very sunbeams fall on the body as a warmgolden net, and keep thought and feeling from escape. Nature usesbeauty now not to uplift, but to entice. I find her intent uponthe one general business of seeing that no type of her creaturesgets left out of the generations. Studied in my yard full of birds, as with a condensing-glass of the world, she can be seen enactingamong them the dramas of history. Yesterday, in the secret recessof a walnut, I saw the beginning of the Trojan war. Last weekI witnessed the battle of Actium fought out in mid-air. And downamong my hedges--indeed, openly in my very barn-yard--there is aperfectly scandalous Salt Lake City. 

And while I am watching the birds, they are watching me. Not a littlefop among them, having proposed and been accepted, but perches ona limb, and has the air of putting his hands mannishly under hiscoattails and crying out at me, "Hello! Adam, what were you madefor?" "You attend to your business, and I'll attend to mine, " Ianswer. "You have one May; I have twenty-five!" He didn't waitto hear. He caught sight of a pair of clear brown eyes peepingat him out of a near tuft of leaves, and sprang thither with openarms and the sound of a kiss. 

But if I have twenty-five Mays remaining, are not some Mays gone?Ah, well! Better a single May with the right mate than the fullnumber with the wrong. And where is she--the right one? If sheever comes near my yard and answers my whistle, I'll know it; andthen I'll teach these popinjays in blue coats and white pantaloonswhat Adam was made for. 

But the wrong one--there's the terror! Only think of so compositea phenomenon as Mrs. Walters, for instance, adorned with limpnightcap and stiff curl-papers, like garnishes around a leg ofroast mutton, waking up beside me at four o'clock in the morningas some gray-headed love-bird of Madagascar, and beginning to chirpand trill in an ecstasy!

The new neighbors have come--mother, younger daughter, and servants. The son is at West Point; and the other daughter lingers a few days, unable, no doubt, to tear herself away from her beloved pennyroyaland dearest Green River. They are quiet; have borrowed nothingfrom any one in the neighborhood; have well-dressed, well-trainedservants; and one begins to be a little impressed. The curtainsthey have put up at the windows suggest that the whole nest is beinglined with soft, cool spotless loveliness, that is very restfuland beguiling. 

No one has called yet, since they are no at home till June; butMrs. Walters has done some tall wading lately, and declares thatpeople do not know what to think. They will know when the elderdaughter arrives; for it is the worst member of the family thatsettles what the world shall think of the others. 

If only she were not the worst! If only as I sat here beside mylarge new window, around which the old rose-bush has been trainedand now is blooming, I could look across to her window where thewhite curtains hang, and feel that behind them sat, shy and gentle, the wood-pigeon for whom through Mays gone by I have been vaguelywaiting!

And yet I do not believe that I could live a single year with onlythe sound of cooing in the house. A wood-pigeon would be the deathof me. 

VI

This morning, the 3d of June, the Undine from Green River roseabove the waves. 

The strawberry bed is almost under their windows. I had gone outto pick the first dish of the season for breakfast; for while Ido not care to eat except to live, I never miss an opportunity ofliving upon strawberries. 

I was stooping down and bending the wet leaves over, so as notto miss any, when a voice at the window above said, timidly andplayfully, "Are you the gardener?"

I picked on, turning as red as the berries. Then the voice saidagain, "Old man, are you the gardener?"

Of course a person looking down carelessly on the stooping figureof _any_ man, and seeing nothing but a faded straw hat, and armsand feet and ankles bent together, might easily think him decrepitwith age. Some things touch off my temper. But I answered, humbly, "I am the gardener, madam. "

"How much do you ask for your strawberries?"

"The gentleman who owns this place does not sell his strawberries. He gives them away, if he likes people. How much do you ask for_your_ strawberries?"

"What a nice old gentleman! Is he having those picked to giveaway?"

"He is having these picked for his breakfast. "

"Don't you think he'd like you to give me those, and pick him somemore?"

"I fear not, madam. "

"Nevertheless, you might. He'd never know. "

"I think he'd find it out. "

"You are not afraid of him, are you?"

"I am when he gets mad. "

"Does he treat you badly?"

"If he does, I always forgive him. "

"He doesn't seem to provide you with very many clothes. "

I picked on. 

"But you seem nicely fed. "

I picked on. 

"What is his name, old man? Don't you like to talk?"

"Adam Moss. "

"Such a green, cool, soft name! It is like his house and yard andgarden. What does he do?"

"Whatever he pleases. "

"You must not be impertinent to me, or I'll tell him. What doeshe like?"

"Birds--red-birds. What do _you_ like?"

"Red-birds! How does he catch them? Throw salt on their tails?"

"He is a lover of Nature, madam, and particularly of birds. "

"What does _he_ know about birds? Doesn't he care for people?"

"He doesn't think many worth caring for. "

"Indeed! And _he_ is perfect, then, is he?"

"He thinks he is nearly as bad as any; but that doesn't make therest any better. "

"Poor old gentleman! He must have the blues dreadfully. What doeshe do with his birds? Eat his robins, and stuff his cats, and sellhis red-birds in cages?"

"He considers it part of his mission in life to keep them frombeing eaten or stuffed or caged. "

"And you say he is nearly a hundred?"

"He is something over thirty years of age, madam. "

"Thirty? Surely we heard he was very old. Thirty! And does helive in that beautiful little old house all by himself?"

"_I_ live with him!"

"_You_! Ha! ha! ha! And what is _your_ name, you dear good oldman?"

"Adam. "

"_Two_ Adams living in the same house! Are you the _old_ Adam? Ihave heard so much of him. "

At this I rose, pushed back my hat, and looked up at her. 

"_I_ am Adam Moss, " I said, with distant politeness. "You can havethese strawberries for your breakfast if you want them. "

There was a low quick "Oh!" and she was gone, and the curtainsclosed over her face. It was rude; but neither ought she to havecalled me the old Adam. I have been thinking of one thing: whyshould she speak slightingly of _my_ knowledge of birds? What does_she_ know about them? I should like to inquire. 

Late this afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my finelong-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat, frilled shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, andwalked slowly several times around my strawberry bed. Did no seeany more ripe strawberries. 

Within the last ten days I have called twice upon the Cobbs, urgedno doubt by an extravagant readiness to find them all that I fearedthey were not. How exquisite in life is the art of not seeing manythings, and of forgetting many that have been seen! They receivedme as though nothing unpleasant had happened. Nor did the elderdaughter betray that we had met. She has not forgotten, formore than once I surprised a light in her eyes as though she werelaughing. She has not, it is certain, told even her mother andsister. Somehow this fact invest her character with a charm asof subterranean roominess and secrecy. Women who tell everythingare like finger-bowls of clear water. 

But it is Sylvia that pleases me. She must be about seventeen; andso demure and confiding that I was ready to take her by the hand, lead her to the garden-gate, and say: Dear child, everything inhere--butterflies, flowers, fruit, honey, everything--is yours;come and go and gather as you like. 

Yesterday morning I sent them a large dish of strawberries, witha note asking whether they would walk during the day over to mywoodland pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before settingout for the Mexican war. The mother and Sylvia accepted. Our walkwas a little overshadowed by their loss; and as I thoughtlesslydescribed the gayety of that scene--the splendid young fellowsdancing in their bright uniforms, and now and then pausing to wipetheir foreheads, the speeches, the cheering, the dinner under thetrees, and, a few days later, the tear-dimmed eyes, the hand-wringingand embracing, and at last the marching proudly away, each with aBible in his pocket, and many never, never to return--I was sorrythat I had not foreseen the sacred chord I was touching. Butit made good friends of us more quickly, and they were well-bred, so that we returned to all appearance in gay spirits. The elderdaughter came to meet us, and went at once silently to her mother'sside, as though she had felt the separation. I wondered whethershe had declined to go because of the memory of her father. Aswe passed my front gate, I asked them to look at my flowers. Themother praised also the cabbages, thus showing an admirably balancedmind; the little Sylvia fell in love with a vine-covered arbor;the elder daughter appeared to be secretly watching the many birdsabout the grounds, but when I pointed out several less-known species, she lost interest. 

What surprises most is that they are so refined and intelligent. It is greatly to be feared that we Kentuckians in this part of theState are profoundly ignorant as to the people in other parts. Itold Mrs. Walters this, and she, seeing that I am beginning to likethem, is beginning to like them herself. Dear Mrs. Walters! Herfew ideas are like three or four marbles on a level floor; theyhave no power to move themselves, but roll equally well in anydirection you push them. 

This afternoon I turned a lot of little town boys into my strawberrybed, and now it looks like a field that had been harrowed and rolled. I think they would gladly have pulled up some of the plants to seewhether there might not be berries growing on the roots. 

It is unwise to do everything that you can for people at once; forwhen you can do nothing more, they will say you are no longer likeyourself, and turn against you. So I have meant to go slowly withthe Cobbs in my wish to be neighborly, and do not think that theycould reasonably be spoiled on one dish of strawberries in threeweeks. But the other evening Mrs. Cobb sent over a plate of goldensally-lunn on a silver waiter, covered with a snow-white napkin;and acting on this provocation, I thought they could be trustedwith a basket of cherries. 

So next morning, in order to save the ripening fruit on a rather smalltree of choice variety, I thought I should put up a scarecrow, andto this end rummaged a closet for some last winter's old clothes. These I crammed with straw, and I fastened the resulting figurein the crotch of the tree, tying the arms to the adjoining limbs, and giving it the dreadful appearance of shouting, "Keep out ofhere, you rascals, or you'll get hurt!" And, in truth, it did lookso like me that I felt a little uncanny about it myself. 

Returning home late, I went at once to the tree, where I found nota quart of cherries, and the servants told of an astonishing thing:that no sooner had the birds discovered who was standing in thetree, wearing the clothes in which he used to feed them during thewinter, than the news spread like wildfire to the effect that hehad climbed up there and was calling out: "Here is the best tree, fellows! Pitch in and help yourselves!" So that the like of thechattering and fetching away was never seen before. This was thestory; but little negroes love cherries, and it is not incrediblethat the American birds were assisted in this instance by a largefamily of fat young African spoon-bills. 

Anxious to save another tree, and afraid to use more of my ownclothes, I went over to Mrs. Walters, and got from her an old bonnetand veil, a dress and cape, and a pair of her cast-off yellowgaiters. These garments I strung together and prepared to looklife-like, as nearly as a stuffing of hay would meet the innerrequirements of the case. I them seated the dread apparition in thefork of a limb, and awaited results. The first thief was an oldjay, who flew towards the tree with his head turned to one sideto see whether any one was overtaking him. But scarcely had healighted when he uttered a scream of horror that was sickening tohear, and dropped on the grass beneath, after which he took himselfoff with a silence and speed that would have done credit to apassenger-pigeon. That tree was rather avoided for some days, orit may have been let alone merely because others were ripening; sothat Mrs. Cobb got her cherries, and I sent Mrs. Walter some alsofor the excellent loan of her veil and gaiters. 

As the days pass I fall in love with Sylvia, who has been persuadedto turn my arbor into a reading-room, and is often to be foundthere of mornings with one of Sir Walter's novels. Sometimes Ileave her alone, sometimes lie on the bench facing her, while shereads aloud, or, tiring, prattles. Little half-fledged spirit, towhom the yard is the earth and June eternity, but who peeps overthe edge of the nest at the chivalry of the ages, and fancies thatshe knows the world. The other day, as we were talking, she tappedthe edge of her _Ivanhoe_ with a slate-pencil--for she is alsostudying the Greatest Common Divisor--and said, warningly, "Youmust not make epigrams; for if you succeeded you would be brilliant, and everything brilliant is tiresome. "

"Who is your authority for _that_ epigram, Miss Sylvia?" I said, laughing. 

"Don't you suppose that I have any ideas but what I get from books?"

"You may have all wisdom, but those sayings proceed only fromexperience. "

"I have my intuitions; they are better than experience. "

"If you keep on, _you_ will be making epigrams presently, and thenI shall find you tiresome, and go away. "

"You couldn't. I am your guest. How unconventional I am to comeover and sit in your arbor! But it is Georgiana's fault. "

"Did _she_ tell you to come?"

"No; but she didn't keep me from coming. Whenever any oneof us does anything improper we always say to each other, 'It'sGeorgiana's fault. She ought not to have taught us to be so simpleand unconventional. '"

"And is she the family governess?"

"She governs the family. There doesn't seem to be any realgovernment, but we all do as she says. You might think at firstthat Georgiana was the most light-headed member of the family, butshe isn't. She's deep. I'm shallow in comparison with her. Shecalls me sophisticated, and introduces me as the elder Miss Cobb, and says that if I don't stop reading Scott's novels and learnmore arithmetic she will put white caps on me, and make me walk tochurch in carpet slippers and with grandmother's stick. "

"But you don't seem to have stopped, Miss Sylvia. "

"No; but I'm stopping. Georgiana always gives us time, but we getright at last. It was two years before she could make my brothergo to West Point. He was wild and rough, and wanted to raisetobacco, and float with it down to New Orleans, and have a goodtime. Then when she had gotten him to go she was afraid he'd comeback, and so she persuaded my mother to live here, where thereisn't any tobacco, and where I could be sent to school. That tookher a year, and now she is breaking up my habit of reading nothingbut novels. She gets us all down in the end. One day when sheand Joe were little children they were out at the wood-pile, andGeorgiana was sitting on a log eating a jam biscuit, with her feeton the log in front of her. Joe had a hand-axe, and was choppingat anything till he caught sight of her feet. Then he went to theend of the log, and whistled like a steamboat, and began to hackdown in that direction, calling out to her: 'Take your toes out ofthe way, Georgiana. I am coming down the river. The current isup and I can't stop. ' 'My toes were there first, ' said Georgiana, and went on eating her biscuit. 'Take them out of the way, I tellyou, ' he shouted as he came nearer, 'or they'll get cut off. ' 'Theywere there first, ' repeated Georgiana, and took another deliciousnibble. Joe cut straight along, and went whack right into her fivetoes. Georgiana screamed with all her might, but she held her footon the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caughther in his arms. 'Georgiana, I _told_ you to take your toes away, 'he cried; 'you are such a little fool, ' and ran with her to thehouse. But she always had control over him after that. "

To-day I saw Sylvia enter the arbor, and shortly afterwards Ifollowed with a book. 

"When you stop reading novels and begin to read history, MissSylvia, here is the most remarkable history of Kentucky that wasever written or ever will be. It is by my father's old teacher ofnatural history in Transylvania University, Professor Rafinesque, who also had a wonderful botanical garden on this side of the town;perhaps the first ever seen in this country. "

"I know all about it, " replied Sylvia, resenting this slightupon her erudition. "Georgiana has my father's copy, and his waspresented to him by Mr. Audubon. "

"Audubon?" I said, with a doubt. 

"Never heard of Audubon?" cried Sylvia, delighted to show up myignorance. 

"Only of the great Audubon, Miss Sylvia; the _great_, the very_great_ Audubon. "

"Well, this was the _great_, the very _great_ Audubon. He livedin Henderson, and kept a corn-mill. He and my father were friends, and he gave my father some of his early drawings of Kentuckybirds. Georgiana has them now, and that is where she gets her loveof birds--from my father, who got his from the _great_, the very_great_ Audubon. "

"Would Miss Cobb let me see these drawings?" I asked, eagerly. 

"She might; but she prizes them as much as if they were stray leavesout of the only Bible in the world. "

As Sylvia turned inside out this pocket of her mind, there haddropped out a key to her sister's conduct. Now I understood herslighting attitude towards my knowledge of birds. But I shallfeel some interest in Miss Cobb from this time on. I never dreamedthat she could bring me fresh news of that rare spirit whom I haveso wished to see, and for one week in the woods with whom I wouldgive any year of my life. Are they possibly the Henderson familyto whom Audubon intrusted the box of his original drawings duringhis absence in Philadelphia, and who let a pair of Norway rats reara family in it, and cut to pieces nearly a thousand inhabitants ofthe air?

There are two more days of June. Since the talk with Sylvia I havecalled twice more upon the elder Miss Cobb. Upon reflection, itis misleading to refer to this young lady in terms so dry, stiff, and denuded; and I shall drop into Sylvia's form, and call hersimply Georgiana. That looks better--Georgiana! It sounds well, too--Georgiana!

Georgiana, then, is a rather elusive character. The more I see ofher the less I understand her. If your nature draws near hers, itretreats. If you pursue, it flies--a little frightened perhaps. If then you keep still and look perfectly safe, she will return, but remain at a fixed distance, like a bird that will stay in youryard, but not enter your house. It is hardly shyness, for she is notshy, but more like some strain of wild nature in her that refusesto be domesticated. One's faith is strained to accept Sylvia'sestimate that Georgiana is deep--she is so light, so airy, soplayful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itselfan owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers thanof its innocent heart; but Georgiana--what is she? Secretly anowl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing tome. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness thatis rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon andher father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know thata younger one has been talking about her. I merely gave her severalchances to speak of birds, but she ignored them. As for me and_my_ love of birds, such trifles are beneath her notice. I don'tlike her, and it will not be worth while to call again soon, thoughit would be pleasant to see those drawings. 

This morning as I was accidentally passing under her window I sawher at it and lifted my hat. She leaned over with her cheek inher palm, and said, smiling, "You mustn't spoil Sylvia!"

"What is my definite offence in that regard?"

"Too much arbor, too many flowers, too much fine treatment. "

"Does fine treatment ever harm anybody? Is it not bad treatmentthat spoils people?"

"Good treatment may never spoil people who are old enough to knowits rarity and value. But you say you are a student of nature;have you not observed that nature never lets the sugar get to thingsuntil they are ripe? Children must be kept tart. "

"The next time that Miss Sylvia comes over, then, I am to giveher a tremendous scolding and a big basket of green apples. "

"Or, what is worse, suppose you encourage her to study the GreatestCommon Divisor? I am trying to get her ready for school in thefall. "

"Is she being educated for a teacher?"

"You know that Southern ladies never teach. "

"Then she will never need the Greatest Common Divisor. I haveknown many thousands of human beings, and none but teachers everhave the least use for the Greatest Common Divisor. "

"But she needs to do things that she dislikes. We all do. "

I smiled at the memory of a self-willed little bare foot on a logyears ago. 

"I shall see that my grape arbor does not further interfere withMiss Sylvia's progress towards perfection. "

"Why didn't you wish us to be your neighbors?"

"I didn't know that you were the right sort of people. "

"_Are_ we the right sort?"

"The value of my land has almost been doubled. "

It is a pleasure to know that you approve of us on those grounds. Will the value of _our_ land rise also, do you think? And why doyou suppose we objected to _you_ as a neighbor?"

"I cannot imagine. "

"The imagination can be cultivated, you know. Then tell me this:why do Kentuckians in this part of Kentucky think so much ofthemselves compared with the rest of the world?"

"Perhaps it's because they are Virginians. There may be variousreasons. "

"Do the people ever tell what the reasons are?"

"I have never heard one. "

"And if we stayed here long enough, and imitated them very closely, do you suppose we would get to feel the same way?"

"I am sure of it. "

"It must be so pleasant to consider Kentucky the best part ofthe world, and _your_ part of Kentucky the best of the State, and_your_ family the best of all the best families in that best part, and yourself the best member of your family. Ought not that tomake one perfectly happy?"

"I have often observed that it seems to do so. "

"It is delightful to remember that _you_ approve of us. And weshould feel _so_ glad to be able to return the compliment. Good-bye!"

Any one would have to admit, however, that there is no sharpnessin Georgiana's pleasantry. The child-nature in her is so sunny, sportive, so bent on harmless mischief. She still plays with lifeas a kitten with a ball of yarn. Some day Kitty will fall asleepwith the Ball poised in the cup of one foot. Then, waking, whenher dream is over, she will find that her plaything has becomea rocky, thorny, storm-swept, immeasurable world, and that she, awoman, stands holding out towards it her imploring arms, and askingonly for some littlest part in its infinite destinies. 

After the last talk with Georgiana I felt renewed desire to see thoseAudubon drawings. So yesterday morning I sent over to her somethings written by a Northern man, whom I call the young Audubonof the Maine woods. His name is Henry D. Thoreau, and it is, Ibelieve, known only to me down here. Everything that I can find ofhis is as pure and cold and lonely as a wild cedar of the mountainrocks, standing far above its smokeless valley and hushed whiteriver. She returned them to-day with word that she would thank mein person, and to-night I went over in a state of rather senselesseagerness. 

Her mother and sister had gone out, and she sat on the dark porchalone. The things of Thoreau's have interested her, and she askedme to tell her all I knew of him, which was little enough. Thenof her own accord she began to speak of her father and Audubon--ofthe one with the worship of love, of the other with the worshipof greatness. I felt as though I were in a moonlit cathedral; forher voice, the whole revelation of her nature, made the spot soimpressive and so sacred. She scarcely addressed _me_; she wascommuning with them. Nothing that her father told her regardingAudubon appears to have been forgotten; and, brought nearer thanever before to that lofty, tireless spirit in its wanderings throughthe Kentucky forests, I almost forgot her to whom I was listening. But in the midst of it she stopped, and it was again kitten and yarn. I left quite as abruptly. Upon my soul, I believe that Georgianadoesn't think me worth talking to seriously. 

VII

July has dragged like a log across a wet field. 

There was the Fourth, which is always the grandest occasion of theyear with us. Society has taken up Sylvia and rejected Georgiana;and so with its great gallantry, and to her boundless delight, Sylvia was invited to sit with a bevy of girls in a large furniturewagon covered with flags and bunting. The girls were to be dressedin white, carry flowers and flags, and sing "The Star-spangledBanner" in the procession, just before the fire-engine. I wrote anote to Georgiana, asking whether it would interfere with Sylvia'sGreatest Common Divisor if I presented her with a profusion ofelegant flowers on that occasion. Georgiana herself had equippedSylvia with a truly exquisite silken flag on a silver staff; andas Sylvia both sang and waved with all her might, not only to keepup the Green River reputation in such matters, but with a mediaevaldetermination to attract a young man on the fire-engine behind, she quite eclipsed every other miss in the wagon, and was not evenhoarse when persuaded at last to stop. So that several of therepresentatives of the other States voted afterwards in a specialcongress that she was loud, and in no way as nice as they hadfancied, and that they ought never to recognize her again exceptin church and a funerals. 

And then the month brought down from West Point the son of thefamily, who cut _off_--or cut _at_--Georgiana's toes, I remember. With him a sort of cousin, who lives in New York State; and aftera few days of toploftical strutting around town, and a pussillanimouscrack or two over the back-garden fence at my birds, they went awayagain, to the home of this New York cousin, carrying Georgiana withthem to spend the summer. 

Nothing has happened since. Only Sylvia and I have been making haywhile the sun shines--or does not shine, if one chooses to regardGeorgiana's absence in that cloudy fashion. Sylvia's ordinary armorconsists of a slate-pencil for a spear, a slate for a shield, anda volume of Sir Walter for a battle-axe. Now and then I have foundher sitting alone in the arbor with the drooping air of Lucy Ashtonbeside the fountain; and she would be better pleased if I met herclandestinely there in cloak and plume with the deadly complexionof Ravenswood. 

The other day I caught her toiling at something, and she admittedbeing at work on a poem which would be about half as long as the"Lay of the Last Minstrel. " She read me the opening lines, afterthat bland habit of young writer; and as nearly as I recollect, they began as follows:

"I love to have gardens, I love to have plants, I love to haveair, and I love to have ants. "

When not under the spell of mediaeval chivalry she prattles needlesslyof Georgiana, early life, and their old home in Henderson. AlthoughI have pointed out to her the gross impropriety of her conduct, shehas persisted in reading me some of Georgiana's letters, writtenfrom the home of that New York cousin, whose mother they are nowvisiting. I didn't like _him_ particularly. Sylvia relates thathe was a favorite of her father's. 

The dull month passes to-day. One thing I have secretly wished tolearn; did her brother cut Georgiana's toes entirely off?

VIII

In August the pale and delicate poetry of the Kentucky land makesitself felt as silence and repose. Still skies, still woods, stillsheets of forest water, still flocks and herds, long lanes windingwithout the sound of a traveller through fields of the universalbrooding stillness. The sun no longer blazing, but muffled in aveil of palest blue. No more black clouds rumbling and rushing upfrom the horizon, but a single white one brushing slowly againstthe zenith like the lost wing of a swan. Far beneath it thesilver-breasted hawk, using the cloud as his lordly parasol. Theeagerness of spring gone, now all but incredible as having everexisted; the birds hushed and hiding; the bee, so nimble once, fallen asleep over his own cider-press in the shadow of the goldenapple. From the depths of the woods may come the notes of thecuckoo; but they strike the air more and more slowly, like theclack, clack of a distant wheel that is being stopped at the closeof harvest. The whirring wings of the locust let themselves goin one long wave of sound, passing into silence. All nature is avast sacred goblet, filling drop by drop to the brim, and not tobe shaken. But the stalks of the later flowers begin to be stuffedwith hurrying bloom lest they be too late; and the nighthawk rapidlymounts his stairway of flight higher and higher, higher and higher, as though he would rise above the warm white sea of atmosphere andbreathe in cold ether. 

Always in August my nature will go its own way and seek its ownpeace. I roam solitary, but never alone, over this rich pastoralland, crossing farm after farm, and keeping as best I can out ofsight of the laboring or loitering negroes. For the sight of themruins every landscape, and I shall never feel myself free tillthey are gone. What if they sing? The more is the pity that anyhuman being could be happy enough to sing so long as he was a slavein any thought or fibre of his nature. 

Sometimes it is through the after-math of fat wheat-fields, wherefloat like myriad little nets of silver gauze the webs of thecrafty weavers, and where a whole world of winged small folk flitfrom tree-top to tree-top of the low weeds. They are all mine--theseKentucky wheat-fields. After the owner has taken from them hislast sheaf I come in and gather my harvest also--one that he didnot see, and doubtless would not begrudge me--the harvest of beauty. Or I walk beside tufted aromatic hemp-fields, as along the shoresof softly foaming emerald seas; or past the rank and file of fieldsof Indian-corn, which stand like armies that had gotten readyto march, but been kept waiting for further orders, until at lastthe soldiers had gotten tired, as the gayest will, of their yellowplumes and green ribbons, and let their big hands fall heavily downat their sides. There the white and the purple morning-glorieshang their long festoons and open to the soft midnight winds theirelfin trumpets. 

This year as never before I have felt the beauty of the world. And with the new brightness in which every common scene has beenapparelled there has stirred within me a need of human companionshipunknown in the past. It is as if Nature had spread out her lastloveliness and said: "See! You have before you now all that youcan ever get from me! It is not enough. Realize this in time. Iam your Mother. Love me as a child. But remember! such love canbe only a little part of your life. "

Therefore I have spent the month restless, on the eve of change, drawn to Nature, driven from her. In September it will be different, for then there are more things to do on my small farm, and I seepeople on account of my grapes and pears. My malady this Augusthas been an idle mind--so idle that a letter from Georgiana seemsits main event. This was written from the old home of Audubon onthe Hudson, whither they had gone sight-seeing. It must have beento her much like a pilgrimage to a shrine. She wrote informally, telling me about the place and enclosing a sprig of cedar from oneof the trees in the yard. Her mind was evidently overflowing onthe subject. It was rather pleasant to have the overflow turnedmy way. I shall plant the cedar where it will say always green. 

I saw Georgiana once more before he leaving. The sudden appearanceof her brother and cousin, and the new that she would return withthem for the summer, spurred me up to make another attempt at thoseAudubon drawings. 

How easy it was to get them! It is what a man thinks a woman willbe willing to do that she seldom does. But she made a confession. When she first found that I was a smallish student of birds, shefeared I would not like Audubon, since men so often sneer at thosewho do in a grand way what they can do only in a poor one. I hadanother revelation of Georgiana's more serious nature, which isalways aroused by the memory of her father. There is somethingbeautiful and steadfast in this girl's soul. In our hemisphere vinesclimb round from left to right; if Georgiana loved you she would, if bidden, reverse every law of her nature for you as completelyas a vine that you had caused to twine from right to left. 

Sylvia enters school the 1st of September, and Georgiana is to beat home then to see to that. How surely she drives this familybefore her--and with as gentle a touch as that of a slow south windupon the clouds. 

Those poor fist drawings of Audubon! He succeeded; we study hisearly failures. The world never studies the failures of those whodo not succeed in the end. 

The birds are moulting. If man could only moult also--his mindonce a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions!How fine we should all look if every August the old plumage of ournatures would drop out and be blown away, and fresh quills take thevacant places! But we have one set of feathers to last us throughour threescore years and ten--one set of spotless feathers, whichwe are told to keep spotless through all our lives in a dirty world. If one gets broken it stays; if one gets blackened, nothing willcleanse it. No doubt we shall all fly home at last, like a flockof pigeons that were once turned loose snow-white from the sky, andmade to descend and fight one another and fight everything else fora poor living amid soot and mire. If then the hand of the unseenFancier is stretched forth to draw us in, how can he possiblysmite any one of us, or cast us away, because we came back to himblack and blue with bruises and besmudged and bedraggled past allrecognition?

IX

To-day, the 7th of September, I made a discovery. The pair ofred-birds that built in my cedar-trees last winter got duly awaywith the brood. Several times during summer rambles I cast my eyeabout, but they were not to be seen. Early this afternoon I struckout across the country towards a sinkhole in a field two miles away, some fifty yards in diameter, very deep, and enclosed by a fence. A series of these circular basins, at regular distances apart, runsacross the country over there, suggesting the remains of ancientearth-works. The bottom had dropped out of this one, probablycommunicating with the many caves that are characteristic of thisblue limestone. 

Within the fence everything is an impenetrable thicket of weeds andvines--blackberry, thistle, ironweed, pokeweed, elder, golden-rod. As I drew near, I saw two or three birds dive down, with the shy waythey have at this season; and when I came to the edge, everythingwas quiet. But I threw a stone at a point where the tangle was deep, and there was a great fluttering and scattering of the pretenders. And then occurred more than I had looked for. The stone hadhardly struck the brush when what looked like a tongue of vermilionflame leaped forth near by, and, darting across, stuck itself outof sight in the green vines on the opposite slope. A male anda female cardinal flew up also, balancing themselves on sprays ofthe blackberry, and uttering excitedly their quick call-notes. Iwhistled to the male as I had been used, and he recognized meby shooting up his crest and hopping to nearer twigs with louderinquiry. All at once, as if an idea had struck him, he sprangacross to the spot where the first frightened male had disappeared. I could still hear him under the vines, and presently he reappearedand flew up into a locust-tree on the farther edge of the basin, followed by the other. What had taken place or took place then Ido not know; but I wished he might be saying: "My son, that manover there is the one who was very good to your mother and me lastwinter, and who owns the tree you were born in. I have warnedyou, of course, never to trust Man; but I would advise you, whenyou have found your sweetheart, to give he a trial, and take herto his cedar-trees. "

If he said anything like this, it certainly had a terrible effectof the son; for, having mounted rapidly to the tree-top, he clovethe blue with his scarlet wings as though he were flying from death. I lost sight of him over a corn-field. One fact pleased me: thefather retuned to his partner under the briers, for he is not ofthe lower sort who forget the mother when the children are reared. They hold faithfully together during the ever more silent, ever moreshadowy autumn days; his warming breast is close to hers throughfrozen winter nights; and if they both live to see another May sheis still all the world to him, and woe to any brilliant vagabondwho should warble a wanton love-song under her holy windows. 

Georgiana returned the last of August. The nest morning she wasat her window, looking across into my yard. I was obliged to passthat way, and welcomed her gayly, expressing my thanks for theletter. 

"I had to come back, you see, " she said, with calm simplicity. Ilingered awkwardly, stripping upward the stalks of some weeds. 

"Very few Kentucky birds are migratory, " I replied at length, withdesperate brilliancy and an overwhelming grimace. 

"I shall go back some time--to say, " she said, and turned away witha parting faintest smile. 

I that West Point brother giving trouble? If so, the sooner a warbreaks out and he gets killed, the better. One thing is certain:if, for the next month, fruit and flowers will give Georgiana anypleasure, she shall have a good deal of pleasure. She is so changed!But why need I take on about it?

They have been cleaning out a drain under the streets along theTown Fork of Elkhorn, and several people are down with fever. 

X

New-Year's night again, and bitter cold. 

When I forced myself away from my fire before dark, and ran down tothe stable to see about feeding and bedding the horses and cows, every beast had its head drawn in towards its shoulders, andlooked at me with the dismal air of saying, "Who is tempering thewind now?" The dogs in the kennel, with their noses between theirhind-legs, were shivering under their blankets and straw likea nest of chilled young birds. The fowls on the roost were merewhite and blue puffs of feathers. Nature alone has the making ofher creatures; why doesn't she make them comfortable?

After supper old Jack and Dilsy came in, and standing against thewall with their arms folded, told me more of what happened after Igot sick. That was about the middle of September, and it is onlytwo weeks since I became well enough to go in and out through allsorts of weather. 

It was the middle of September then, my servants said, and as withina week after taking the fever I was very ill, a great many peoplecame out to inquire for me. Some of these, walking around thegarden, declared it was a pity for such fruit and flowers to bewasted, and so helped themselves freely every time. The old doctor, who always fears for my health at this season, stopped by nearlyevery day to repeat how he had warned me, and always walked back tohis gig in a round-about way, which required him to pass a favoritetree; and once he was so indignant to find several other personsgathered there, and mournfully enjoying the last of the fruit asthey predicted I would never get well, that he came back to thehouse--with two pears in each duster pocket and one in his mouth--andtold Jack it was an outrage. The preacher, likewise, who appearsin the spring-time, one afternoon knocked reproachfully at thefront door and inquired whether I was in a condition to be reasonedwith. In his hand he carried a nice little work-basket, which mayhave been brought along to catch his prayers; but he took it homepiled with grapes. 

And then they told me, also, how many a good and kind soul camewith hushed footsteps and low inquires, turning away sometimeswith brightened faces, sometimes with rising tears--often peopleto whom I had done no kindness or did not even know; how others, whom I had quarrelled with or did not like, forgot the poor punyquarrels and the dislike, and begged to do for me whatever theycould; how friends went softly around the garden, caring for aflower, putting a prop under a too heavily-laden limb, or climbingon step-ladders to tie sacks around the finest bunches of grapes, with the hope that I might be well in time to eat them--touchingnothing themselves, having no heart to eat; how dear, dear oneswould never leave me day or night; how a good doctor wore himselfout with watching, and a good pastor sent up for me his spotlessprayers; and at last, when I began to mend, how from far and nearthere poured in flowers and jellies and wines, until, had I beenthe multitude by the Sea of Galilee, there must have been basketsto spare. God bless them! God bless them all! And God forgiveus all the blindness, the weakness, and the cruelty with which wejudge each other when we are in health. 

This and more my beloved old negroes told me a few hours ago, asI sat in deep comfort and bright health again before my blazinghickories; and one moment we were in laughter and the next intears--as is the strange life we live. This is a gay household now, and Dilsy cannot face me without a fleshly earthquake of laughterthat I have become such a high-tempered tiger about punctual meals. 

In particular, my two nearest neighbors were much at odds as towhich had better claim to nurse me; so that one day Mrs. Walters, able to endure it no longer, thrust Mrs. Cobb out of the house bythe shoulder-blades, locked the door on her, and them opened theshutters and scolded her out of the window. 

One thing I miss. My servants have never called the name ofGeorgiana. The omission is unnatural, and must be intentional. Of course I have not asked whether she showed any care; but thatlittle spot of silence affects me as the sight of a tree remainingleafless in the woods where everything else is turning green. 

XI

To-day I was standing at a window, looking out at the aged row ofcedars, now laden with snow, and thinking of Horace and Soracte. Suddenly, beneath a jutting pinnacle of white boughs which leftunder themselves one little spot of green, I saw a cardinal hopout and sit full-breasted towards me. The idea flashed throughmy mind that this might be that shyest, most beautiful fellow whomI had found in September, and whom I tried to make out as the sonof my last winter's pensioner. At least he has never lived in myyard before; for when, to test his shyness, I started to raise thewindow-sash, at the first noise of it he was gone. My birds arenot so afraid of me. I must get on better terms with this stranger. 

Mrs. Walters over for a while afterwards. I told her of my fancythat this bird was one of last summer's brood, and that he appeareda trifle larger than any male I had ever seen. She said of course. Had I not fed the parents all last winter? When she fed her hens, did they not lay bigger eggs? Did not bigger eggs contain biggerchicks? Did not bigger chicks become bigger hens, again? Accordingto Mrs. Walters, a single winter's feeding of hot corn-meal, scraps of bacon, and pods of red pepper will all but bring abouta variation of species; and so if the assumed rate at which I amnow going were kept up a hundred years, my cedar-trees might befull of a race of red-birds as large and as fat as geese. 

Standing towards sundown at another window, I saw Georgiana sewingat hers, as I have seen her every day since I got out of bed. Whyshould she sew so much? There is a servant also; and they sew, sew, sew, as if eternal sewing were eternal happiness, eternalsalvation. The first day she sprang up, letting her work roll offher lap, and waved her handkerchief inside the panes, and smiledwith what looked to me like radiant pleasure that I was well again. I was weak and began to tremble, and, going back to the fireside, lay back in my chair with a beating of the heart that was a warning. Since then she has recognized me by only a quiet kindly smile. Whyhas no one ever called her name? I believe Mrs. Walters knows. She comes nowadays as if to tell something, and goes away with astruggle that she has not told it. But a secret can no more stayin the depths of Mrs. Walter's mind than cork at the bottom ofwater; some day I shall see this mystery riding on the surface. 

XII

Yes, she knew; while unconscious I talked of Georgiana, of beingin love with her. Mrs. Walters added, sadly, that Georgianacame home in the fall engaged to that New York cousin. Hence thesewing--he is to marry her in June. 

I am _not_ in love with her. It is now four weeks since hearingthis conventional fiction, and every day I have been perfectlyable to repeat: "I am _not_ in love with Georgiana!" There wasone question which I put severely to Mrs. Walters: Had she toldGeorgiana of my foolish talk? She shook her head violently, andpressed her lips closely together, suggesting how impossible itwould be for the smallest monosyllable in the language to escapeby that channel; but she kept her eyes wide open, and the truthissued from them, as smoke in a hollow tree, if stopped in at alower hole, simply rises and comes out at a higher one. "You shouldhave shut your eyes also, " I said. "You have told her every wordof it, and the Lord only knows how much more. "

This February has let loose its whole pack of grizzly sky-hounds. Unbroken severe weather. Health has not returned as rapidly as waspromised, and I have not ventured outside the yard. But it is apleasure to chronicle the beginning of an acquaintanceship betweenhis proud eminence the young cardinal and myself. For a long timehe would have naught to do with me, fled as I approached, abandonedthe evergreens altogether and sat on the naked tree-tops, as muchas threatening to quit the place altogether if I did not leave himin peace. Surely he is the shyest of his kind, and, to my fancy, the most beautiful; and therefore Nature seems to have stored himwith extra caution towards archenemy. 

But in the old human way I have taken advantage of his necessities. The north wind has been by friend against him. I have calledin the aid of sleets and snows, have besieged him in his whitecastle behind the glittering array of his icicles with threats ofstarvation. So one day, dropping like a glowing coal down amongthe other birds, he snatched a desperate hasty meal from the publicpoor-house table that I had spread under the trees. 

It is the first surrender that decides. Since then some progresshas been made in winning his confidence, but the struggle going onin his nature is plain enough still. At times he will rush awayfrom me in utter terror; at others he lets me draw a little nearer, a little nearer, without moving form a limb; and now, after a monthof persuasion, he begins to discredit the experience which he hasinherited from centuries upon centuries of ancestors. In all thatI have done I have tried to say to him: "Don't judge me by mankindin general. With me you are safe. I pledge myself to defend youfrom enemies, high and low. "

This had not escaped the notice of Georgiana at the window, and morethan once she had let her work drop to watch my patient progressand to bestow upon me a rewarding smile. Is there nearly alwayssadness in it, or is the sadness in my eyes? If Georgiana's brotheris giving her trouble, I'd like to take a hand-axe to _his_ feet. I suppose I shall never know whether he cut her foot in two. Shecarries the left one a little peculiarly; but so many women dothat. 

Sometimes, when the day's work is over and the servant is gone, Georgiana comes to the window and looks away towards the sunsetsof winter, her hands clasped behind her back, her motionless figurein relief against the darkness within, her face white and still. Being in the shadow of my own room, so that she could not see me, and knowing that I ought not to do it, but unable to resist, I havesoftly taken up the spy-glass which I use in the study of birds, and have drawn Georgiana's face nearer to me, holding it theretill she turns away. I have noted the traces of pain, and oncethe tears which she could not keep back and was too proud to heed. Then I have sat before my flickering embers, with I know not whatall but ungovernable yearning to be over there in the shadowy roomwith her, and, whether she would or not, to fold my arms aroundher, and, drawing her face against mine, whisper: "What is itGeorgiana? And why must it be?"

XIII

The fountains of the great deep opened. A new heaven, a new earth. Georgiana has broken her engagement with her cousin. Mrs. Cobb letit out in the strictest confidence to Mrs. Walters. Mrs. Walters, with stricter confidence still, has told me only. 

The West-Pointer had been writing for some months in regard tothe wild behavior of his cousin. This grew worse, and the crisiscame. Georgiana snapped her thread and put up her needle. Hetravelled all the way down her to implore. I met him at the gateas he left the house--a fine, straight, manly, handsome youngfellow, with his face pale with pain, and his eyes flashing withanger--and bade him a long, affectionate, inward God-speed as hehurried away. It was her father's influence. He had always wishedfor this union. Ah, the evils that come to the living from thewrongful wishes of the dead! Georgiana is so happy now, since shehas been forced to free herself, that spring in this part of theUnited States seems to have advanced about half a month. 

"What on earth will she do with all those clothes?" inquired Mrs. Walters the other night, eying me with curious impressiveness. 

"They ought to be hanged, " I said, promptly. 

There is a young scapegrace who passes my house morning and eveningwith his cows. He has the predatory instincts of that beingwho loves to call himself the image of his Maker, and more thanonce has given annoyance, especially last year, when he robbed adamson-tree of a brood of Baltimore orioles. This winter and springhis friendly interest in my birds has increased, and several timesI have caught him skulking among the pines. Last night what shouldI stumble on but a trap, baited and sprung, under the cedar-tree inwhich the cardinal roosts. I was up before daybreak this morning. Awhile after the waking of the birds here comes my young bird-thief, creeping rapidly to his trap. As he stooped I had him by thecollar, and within the next five minutes I must have set up in hisnervous system a negative disposition to the caging of red-birdsthat will descend as a positive tendency to all the generations ofhis offspring. 

All day this meditated outrage has kept my blood up. Think of thisbeautiful cardinal beating his heart out against maddening bars, orcaged for life in some dark city street, lonely, sick, and silent, bidden to sing joyously of that high world of light and liberty whereonce he sported! Think of the exquisite refinement of cruelty inwishing to take him on the eve of May!

It is hardly a fancy that something as loyal as friendship hassprung up between this bird and me. I accept his original shynessas a mark of his finer instincts; but, like the nobler natures, when once he found it possible to give his confidence, how franklyand fearlessly has it been given. The other day, brilliant, warm, windless, I was tramping across the fields a mile from home, when Iheard him on the summit of a dead sycamore, cleaving the air withstroke after stroke of his long melodious whistle, as with the swingof a silken lash. When I drew near he dropped down from bough tobough till he reached the lowest, a few feet from where I stood, and showed by every movement how glad he was to see me. We reallyhave reached the understanding that the immemorial persecutionof his race by mine is ended; and now more than ever my fondnesssettles about him, since I have found his happiness plotted against, and have perhaps saved his very life. It would be easy to traphim. His eye should be made to distrust every well-arranged pileof sticks under which lurks a morsel. 

To=night I called upon Georgiana and sketched the arrested tragedyof the morning. She watched me curiously, and then dashed into alittle treatise on the celebrated friendships of man for the lowercreatures, in fact and fiction, from camels down to white mice. Her father must have been a remarkably learned man. I didn'tlike this. It made me somehow feel as though I were one of Asp'sFables, or were being translated into English as that old school-roomhorror of Androclus and the Lion. In the bottom of my soul I don'tbelieve that Georgiana cares for birds, or knows the differencebetween a blackbird and a crow. I am going to send her a littlestory, "The Passion of the Desert. " Mrs. Walters is now confidentthat Georgiana regrets having broken off her engagement. But thenMrs. Walters can be a great fool when she puts her whole mind toit. 

XIV

In April I commence to scratch and dig in my garden. 

To-day, as I was raking off my strawberry bed, Georgiana, whom Ihave not seen since the night when she satirized me, called fromthe window:

"What are you going to plant this year?"

"Oh, a little of everything, " I answered, under my hat. "What are_you_ going to plant this year?"

"Are you going to have many strawberries?"

"It's too soon to tell: they haven't bloomed yet. It's too soonto tell when they _do_ bloom. Sometimes strawberries are likewomen: Whole beds full of showy blossoms; but when the time comesto be ripe and luscious, you can't find them. "

"Indeed. "

"'Tis true, 'tis pity. "

I had always supposed that to a Southern gentleman woman was not aberry but a rose. What does he hunt for in woman as much as bloomand fragrance? But I don't belong to the rose-order of Southernwomen myself. Sylvia does. Why did you send me that story?"

"Didn't you like it?"

"No. A woman couldn't care for a story about a man and a tigress. Either she would feel that she was too much left out, or suspectthat she was too much put in. The same sort of story about a lionand a woman--that would be better. "

I raked in silence for a minute, and when I looked up Georgianawas gone. I remember her saying once that children should be kepttart; but now and then I fancy that she would like to keep even amiddle-aged man in brine. Who knows but that in the end I shallsell my place to the Cobbs and move away?

Five more days of April, and then May! For the last half of thislight-and-shadow month, when the clouds, like schools of changeablelovely creatures, seem to be playing and rushing away through thewaters of the sun, life to me has narrowed more and more to thered-bird, who gets tamer and tamer with habit, and to Georgiana, who gets wilder and wilder with happiness. The bird fills the yardwith brilliant singing; she fills her room with her low, clearsongs, hidden behind the window-curtains, which are now so muchoftener and so needlessly closed. I work myself nearly to death inmy garden, but she does not open them. The other day the red-birdsat in a tree near by, and his notes floated out on the air likescarlet streamers. Georgiana was singing, so low that I was makingno noise with my rake in order to hear; and when he began, beforeI realized what I was doing, I had seized a brickbat and hurledit, barely missing him, and driving him away. He did not know whatto make of it; neither did I; but as I raised my eyes I saw thatGeorgiana had opened the curtains to listen to him, and was closingthem with her eyes on my face, and a look on hers that has hauntedme ever since. 

April the 26th. It's of no use. To-morrow night I will go to seeGeorgiana, and ask her to marry me. 

April 28th. Man that is born of woman is of few days and fullof trouble. I am not the least sick, but I am not feeling at allwell. So have made a will, and left everything to Mrs. Walters. She has been over five times to-day, and this evening sat by me along time, holding my hand and smoothing my forehead, and urgingme to try a cream poultice--a mustard-plaster--a bowl of gruel--abroiled chicken. 

I believe Georgiana thinks I'll ask her again. Not if I lived byher through eternity! Thy rod and Thy staff--_they_ comfort me. 

XV

A Poor devil will ask a woman to marry him. She will refuse him. The day after she will meet him as serenely as if he had asked herfor a pin. 

It is now May 15th, and I have not spoken to Georgians when I'vehad a chance. She has been entirely too happy, to judge from hersinging, for me to get along with under the circumstances. Butthis morning, as I was planting a hedge inside my fence under herwindow, she leaned over and said, as though nothing were wrongbetween us, "What are you planting?"

I have sometimes thought that Georgiana can ask more questions thanSocrates. 

"A hedge. "

"What for?"

"To grow. "

"What do you want it to grow for?"

"My garden is too public. I wish to be protected from outsiders. "

"Would it be the same thing if I were to nail up this window? Thatwould be so much quicker. It will be ten years before your hedgeis high enough to keep me from seeing you. And even then, youknow, I could move up-stairs. But I am so sorry to be an outsider. "

"I merely remarked that I was planting a hedge. "

When Georgiana spoke again her voice was lowered: "Would you opena gateway for me into your garden, to be always mine, so that Imight go out and come in, and never another human soul enter it?"

Now Jacob had often begged me to cut _him_ a private gateway onthat side of the garden, so that only _he_ might come in and goout; and I had refused, since I did not wish him to get to me soeasily with his complaints. Besides, a gate once opened, who maynot use it? and I was indignant that Georgiana should lightly askanything at my hands; therefore I looked quickly and sternly up ather and said, "I will not. "

Afterwards the thought rushed over me that she had not spoken ofany gateway through my garden fence, but of another one, mystical, hidden, infinitely more sacred. For her voice descended almost ina whisper, and her face, as she bent down towards me, had on it Iknow not what angelic expression. She seemed floating to me fromheaven. 

May 17th. To-day I put a little private gate through my fenceunder Georgiana's window, as a sign to her. Balaam's beast thatI am! Yes, seven times more than the inspired ass. 

As I passed to-day, I noticed Georgiana looking down at the gatethat I made yesterday. She held a flower to her nose and eyes, but behind the leaves I detected that she was laughing. 

"Good-morning!" she called to me. "What did you cut that ugly holein your fence for?"

"That's not an ugly hole. That's a little private gateway. "

"But what's the little private gateway _for_?"

"Oh, well! You don't understand these matters. I'll tell yourmother. "

"My mother is too old. She no longer stoops to such things. Tell_me_!

"Impossible!"

"I'm dying to know!"

"What will you give me?"

"Anything--this flower!"

"But what would the flower stand for in that case? A little pri--"

"Nothing. Take it!" and she dropped it lightly on my face anddisappeared. As I stood twirling it ecstatically under my nose, and wondering how I could get her to come back to the window, theedge of a curtain was lifted, and a white hand stole out and softlyclosed the shutters. 

In the evening Sylvia went in to a concert of the school, which wasto be held at the Court-house, a chorus of girls being impaneledin the jury-box, and the principal, who wears a little wig, takingher seat on the woolsack. I promised to have the very pick of thegarden ready, and told Sylvia to come to the arbor the last thingbefore starting. She wore big blue rosettes in her hair, and atthat twilight hour looked as lovely, soft, and pure as moonshine;so that I lost control of myself and kissed her twice--once forGeorgiana and once for myself. Surely it must have been Sylvia'sfirst experience. I hope so. Yet she passed through it with thecomposure of a graduate of several year's standing. But, then, women inherit a great stock of fortitude from their mothers inthis regard, and perpetually add to it by their own dispositions. Ought I to warn Georgiana--good heavens! in a general way, ofcourse--that Sylvia should be kept away from sugar, and well underthe influence of vulgar fractions?

It made me feel uncomfortable to see her go tripping out of herfront gate on the arm of a youth. Can it be possible the _he_ wouldtry to do what _I_ did? Men differ so in their virtues, and areso alike in their transgressions. This forward gosling displayedwhite duck pantaloons, brandished pumps on his feet, which lookedflat enough to have been webbed, and was scented as to his maritallocks with a far-reaching pestilence of bergamot and cinnamon. 

After they were gone I strolled back to my arbor and sat down amidthe ruins of Sylvia's flowers. The nigh was mystically beautiful. The moon seemed to me to be softly stealing down the sky to kissEndymion. I looked across towards Georgiana's window. She wasthere, and I slipped over and stood under it. 

"Georgiana, " I whispered, "were you, too, looking at the moon?"

"Part of the time, " she said, sourly. "Isn't it permitted?"

"Sylvia left her scissors in the arbor, and _I_ can't find them. "

"_She'll_ find them to-morrow. "

"If they get wet, you know, they'll rust. "

"I keep something to take rust off. "

"Georgiana, I've got something to tell you about Sylvia. "

"What? That you kissed her?"

"N--o! Not _that_, exactly!"

"Good-night!"

May 21st. Again I asked Georgiana to be mine. I am a perfect foolabout her. But she's coming my way at last--God bless her!

May 24th. I renewed my suit to Georgiana. 

May 27th. I besought Georgiana to hear me. 

May 28th. For the last time I offered my hand in marriage to theelder Miss Cobb. Now I am done with her forever. I am no fool. 

May 29th. Oh, _damn_ Mrs. Walters!

XVI

This morning, the 3d of June, I went out to pick the first dishof strawberries for my breakfast. As I was stooping down I hearda timid, playful voice at the window like the echo of a year ago:"Are you the gardener?"

Since Georgiana will not marry me, if she would only let me alone!

"Old man, are you the gardener?"

"Yes, I'm the gardener. I _know_ what _you_ are. "

"How much do you ask for your strawberries?"

"They come high. _Nothing_ of mine is to be as cheap hereafter asit has been. "

"I am so glad--for your sake. I should like to possess _something_of yours, but I suppose everything is too high now. "

"Entirely too high!"

"If I only could have foreseen that there would be an increase ofvalue! As for me, I have felt that I am getting cheaper lately. I may have to _give_ myself away soon. If I only knew of some onewho loved the lower animals. "

"The fox, for instance?"

"Yes; do you know of any one who would accept the present of afox?"

"Ahem! I wouldn't mind having a _tame_ fox. I don't care muchfor wild foxes. "

"Oh, this one would get tame--in time. "

"I don't believe I know of any one just at present. "

"Very well. Sylvia will get the highest mark in arithmetic. AndJoe is distinguishing himself at West Point. That's what I wantedto tell you. I'll send you over the cream and sugar, and hope youwill enjoy all your berries. _We_ shall buy some in the market-housenext week. "

Later in the forenoon I sent the strawberries over to Georgiana. I have a variety that is the shape of the human heart, and whenripe it matches in color that brighter current of the heart throughwhich runs the hidden history of our passions. All over the topof the dish I carefully laid these heart-shaped berries, and underthe biggest one, at the very top, I slipped this little note: "Lookat the shape of them, Georgiana! I send them all to you. Theyare perishable. "

This afternoon Georgiana sent back the empty dish, and inside thenapkin was this note: "They are exactly the shape and color of myemery needle-bag. I have been polishing my needles in it for manyyears. "

Later, as I was walking to town, I met Georgiana and her mothercoming out. No explanation had ever been made to the mother ofthat goose of a gate in our division fence; and as Georgiana haddeclined to accept the sign, I determined to show her that the gatecould now stand for something else. So I said: "Mrs. Cobb, whenyou send your servants over for green corn, you can let them comethrough that little gate. It will be more convenient. "

Only, I was so angry and confused that I called her Mrs. Corn, and said that when she sent her little Cobbs over . . . My greenservants, etc. 

After Georgiana's last treatment of me I resolved not to let hertalk to me out of her window. So about nine o'clock this morningI took a Negro boy and set him to picking the berries, while Istood by, directing him in a deep, manly voice as to the best wayof managing that intricate business. Presently I heard Georgianabegin to sing to herself behind the curtains. 

"Hurry up and fill that cup, " I said to him, savagely. "And thatwill do this morning. You can go to the mill. The meal's nearlyout. "

When he was gone I called, in an undertone: "Georgiana! Come tothe window! Please! Oh, Georgiana!"

But the song went on. What was the matter? I could not endureit. There was one way by which perhaps she could be brought. Iwhistled long and loud again and again. The curtains parted alittle space. 

"I was merely whistling to the _bird_, " I said. 

"I knew it, " she answered, looking as I had never seen her. "Whenever you speak to _him_ your voice is full of confidence andof love. I believe in it and like to hear it. "

"What do you mean, Georgiana?" I cried, imploringly. 

"Ah, Adam!" she said, with a rush of feeling. It was the first timeshe had ever called me by name. She bent her face down. Over itthere passed a look of sweetness and sadness indescribably blended. "Ah, Adam! you have asked me many times to _marry_ you! Make mebelieve once that you _love_ me! Make me feel that I could trustmyself to you for life!"

"What else can I do?" I answered, stirred to the deepest that wasin me, throwing my arms backward, and standing with an open breastinto which she might gaze. 

And she did search my eyes and face in silence. 

"What more, " I cried again, "in God's name?"

She rested her face on her palm, looking thoughtfully across theyard. Over there the red-bird was singing. Suddenly she leaneddown towards me. Love was on her face now. But her eyes heldmine with the determination to wrest from them the last truth theymight contain, and her voice trembled with doubt:

"Would you put the red-bird in a cage for me? Would you be willingto do that for me, Adam?"

At those whimsical, cruel words I shall never be able to revealall that I felt--the surprise, the sorrow, the pain. Scenes ofboyhood flashed through my memory. A conscience built up throughyears of experience stood close by me with admonition. I saw thelove on her face, the hope with which she hung upon my reply, asthough it would decide everything between us. I did not hesitate;my hands dropped to my side, the warmth died out of my heart asout of spent ashes, and I answered her, with cold reproach, "I--will--not!"

The color died out of her face also. Her eyes still rested onmine, but now with pitying sadness. 

"I feared it, " she murmured, audibly, but to herself, and thecurtains fell together. 

Four days have passed. Georgiana has cast me off. Her curtainsare closed except when she is not there. I have tried to see her;she excuses herself. I have written; my letters come back unread. I have lain in wait for her on the streets; she will not talk withme. The tie between us has been severed. With her it could neverhave been affection. 

And for what? I ask myself over and over and over--for what? Wasshe jealous of the bird, and did she require that I should put itout of the way? Sometimes women do that. Did she take that meansof forcing me to a test? Women do that. Did she wish to showher power over me, demanding the one thing she knew would be thehardest for me to grant? Women do that. Did she crave the pleasureof seeing me do wrong to humor her caprice? Women do that. Butnot one these things can I even associate with the thought ofGeorgiana. I have in every way to have her explain, to explainmyself. She will neither give nor receive an explanation. 

I had supposed that her unnatural request would have been the endof my love, but it has not; that her treatment since would havefatally stung my pride, but it has not. I understand neither; forgiveboth; love her now with that added pain which comes from a man'sdiscovering that the woman dearest to him must be pardoned--pardonedas long as he shall live. 

Never since have I been able to look at the red-bird with the oldgladness. He is the reminder of my loss. Reminder? Do I everforget? Am I not thinking of that before his notes lash my memoryat dawn? All day can they do more than furrow deeper the channelof unforgetfulness? Little does he dream what my friendship forhim has cost me. But this solace I have at heart--that I was noteven tempted to betray him. 

Three days more have passed. No sign yet that Georgiana willrelent soon or ever. Each day the strain becomes harder to bear. My mind has dwelt upon my last meeting with her, until the truthabout it weavers upon my memory like vague, uncertain shadows. She doubted my love for her. What proof was it she demanded? Imust stop looking at the red-bird, lying here and there under thetrees, and listening to him as he sings above me. My eyes devourhim whenever he crosses my path with an uncomprehended fascinationthat is pain. How gentle he has become, and how, without intendingit, I have deepened the perils of his life by the very gentlenessthat I have brought upon him. Twice already the fate of his specieshas struck at him, but I have pledged myself to be his friend. This is his happiest season; a few days now, and he will hear thecall of his young in the nest. 

I shut myself in my workshop in the yard this morning. I did notwish my servants to know. In there I made a bird-trap such as Ihad often used when a boy. And late this afternoon I went to townand bought a bird-cage. I was afraid the merchant would misjudgeme, and explained. He scanned my face silently. To-morrow I willsnare the red-bird down behind the pines long enough to impress onhis memory a life-long suspicion of every such artifice, and thenI will set him free again in his wide world of light. Above allthings, I must see to it that he does not wound himself or havethe least feather broken. 

It is far past midnight now, and I have not slept or wished forslumber. 

Constantly since darkness came on I have been watching Georgiana'swindow for the light of her candle, but there has been no kindlyglimmer yet. The only radiance shed upon the gloom outside comesfrom the heavens. Great cage-shaped white clouds are swung up tothe firmament, and within these pale, gentle, imprisoned lightningsflutter feebly to escape, fall back, rise, and try again and again, and fail. 

. . . _A little after dark this evening I carried the red-birdover to Georgiana_. . . . 

I have seen her so little of late that I did not know she hadbeen away from home for days. But she expected to-night, or, atfurthest, to-morrow morning. I left the bird with the servant atthe door, who could hardly believe what he saw. As I passed outof my front gate on my way there, the boy who returns about thattime from the pasture for his cows joined me as I hurried along, attracted by the fluttering of the bird in the cage. 

"Is it the red-bird? _I_ tried to ketch him once, " he said, with entire forgiveness of me, as having served him right, "butI caught something else. I'll never forget _that_ whipping. Oh, but _wouldn't_ I like to have him! Mr. Moss, you wouldn't mindmy trying to ketch one of them little bits o' brown fellows, wouldyou, that hops around under them pine-trees? They ain't no accountto nobody. Oh my! but _wouldn't_ I like to have him! May I bring_my_ trap some time, and will you help me to ketch one o' themlittle bits o' brown ones? You can beat _me_ ketchin' 'em!"

Several times to-night I have gone across and listened underGeorgiana's window. The servant must have set the cage in herroom, for, as I listened, I am sure I heard the red-bird beatinghis head and breast against the wires. Awhile ago I went again, and did not hear him. I waited a long time. . . . _He maybe quieted_. . . . 

Ah, if any one had said to me that I would ever do what I havedone, with what full, deep joy could I have throttled the lie inhis throat! I put the trap under one of the trees where I havebeen used to feed him. When it fell he was not greatly frightened. He clutched the side of it, and looked out at me. My own mind suppliedhis words: "Help! I'm caught! Take me out! You promised!" WhenI transferred him to the cage, for a moment his confidence lastedstill. He mounted the perch, shook his plumage, and spoke outbravely and cheerily. Then all at once came on the terror. 

The dawn came on this morning with its old splendor. The birdsin my yard, as of old, poured forth their songs. But those loud, long, clear, melodious, deep-hearted, passionate, best-loved notes!As the chorus swelled from shadowy shrubs and vines to the sparkingtree-tops I listened for some sound from Georgiana's room, but overthere I saw only the soft, slow flapping of the white curtains likesignals of distress. 

Towards ten o'clock, wandering restless, I snatched up a book, whichI had no wish to read, and went to the arbor where I had so oftendiscoursed to Sylvia about children's cruelty to birds. Throughthe fluttering leaves the sunlight dripped as a weightless showerof gold, and the long pendants of young fruit swayed gently intheir cool waxen greenness. Where some rotting planks crossed thetop of the arbor a blue-jay sat on her coarse nest; and presentlythe mate flew to her with a worm, and then talked to her in a lowvoice, as much as saying that they must now leave the place forever. I was thinking how love softens even the voice of this file-throatedscreamer, when along the garden walk came the rustle of a woman'sclothes, and, springing up, I stood face to face with Georgiana. 

"What have you done?" she implored. 

"What have _you_ done? I answered as quickly. 

"Oh, Adam, _Adam_! You have killed it! How could you? How couldyou?"

". . . Is he dead, Georgiana? Is he dead?. . . "

I forgot everything else, and pulling my hat down over my eyes, turned from her in the helpless shock of silence that came withthose irreparable words. 

Then in ungovernable anger, suffering, remorse, I turned upon herwhere she sat: "It is _you_ who killed him! Why do you come hereto blame me? And now you pretend to be sorry. You felt no pitywhen pity would have done some good. Trifler! Hypocrite!

"It is false!" she cried, her words flashing from her wholecountenance, her form drawn up to repel the shock of the blow. 

"Did you not ask me for him?"

"No!"

"Oh, deny it all! It is a falsehood--invented by me on the spot. You know nothing of it! You did not ask me to do this! And whenI have yielded, you have not run to reproach me here and to cry, 'How could you? How could you?'"

"No! No! Every word of it--"

"Untruth added to it all! Oh, that I should have been so deceived, blinded, taken in!"

"Adam!"

"Lovely innocence! It is too much! Go away!"

"I will not _stand_ this any longer!" she cried. "I _will_ goaway; but not till I have told you why I have acted as I have. "

"It is too late for that! I do not care to hear!"

"Then you _shall_ hear!" she replied. "You shall know that it isbecause I have believed you capable of speaking to me as you havejust spoken; believed you at heart unsparing and unjust. You thinkI asked you to do what you have done? No! I asked you whetheryou would be willing to do it; and when you said you would _not_, I saw then--by your voice, your eyes, your whole face and manner--thatyou _would_. Saw it as plainly at that moment, in spite of yourdenial, as I see it now--the cruelty in you, the unfaithfulness, the willingness to betray. It was for _this_ reason--not becauseI heard you refuse, but because I saw you consent--that I couldnot forgive you. "

She paused abruptly and looked across into my face. What she maynow have read in it I do not know. Then anger swept her on:

"How often had I not heard you bitter and contemptuous towardspeople because _they_ are treacherous, cruel! How often have youtalked of _your_ love of nature, of _our_ inhumanity towards lowercreatures! But what have _you_ done?

"You set your fancy upon one of these creatures, lie in wait forit, beset it with kindness, persevere in overcoming its wildness. You are amused, delighted, proud of your success. One day--youremember?--it sang as you had always wished to hear it. It annoyedyou, and you threw a stone at it. With a little less angry aimyou would have killed it. I have never seen anything more inhuman. How do I know that some day you would not be tired of me, and throwa stone at _me_? When a woman submits to this once, she will havethem thrown at her whenever she sings at the wrong time, and shewill never know when the right time is. 

"Then you thought you were asked to sacrifice it, and now you havedone that. How do I know that some day you might not be temptedto sacrifice me?" She paused, her voice breaking, and remainedsilent, as if unable to get beyond that thought. 

"If you have finished, " I said, very quietly, "I have something tosay to you, and we need not meet after this. 

"I trapped the _bird_; you trapped _me_. I understood you to asksomething of me, to cast me off when I refused it. Such was myfaith in you that beneath your words I did not look for a snare. Howhard it was for me to forgive you what you asked is my own affairnow; but forgive you I did. How hard it was to grant it, that alsois now, and will always be, my own secret. I beg you merely tobelieve this: knowing it to be all that you have described--andfar more than you can ever understand--still, I did it. Had youdemanded of me something worse, I should have granted that. Ifyou think a man will not do wrong for a woman, you are mistaken. If you think men always love the wrong that they do for the womenwhom they love, you are mistaken again. 

"You have held up my faults to me. I knew them before. I havenot loved them. Do not think that I am trying to make a virtue outof anything I say; but in all my thoughts of you there has been nofault of yours that I have not hidden from my sight, and have notresolved as best I could never to see. Yet do not dream that Ihave found you faultless. 

"You fear I might sacrifice you to something else. It is possible. Every man resists temptation only to a certain point; every manhas his price. It is a risk you will run with any. 

"If you doubt that a man is capable of sacrificing one thing thathe loves to another that he loves more, tempt him, lie in wait forhis weakness, ensnare him in the toils of his greater passion, andlearn the truth. 

"I make no defence--believe all that you say. But had you lovedme, I might have been all this, and it would have been nothing. "

With this I walked slowly out of the arbor, but Georgiana stoodbeside me. Her light touch was on my arm. 

"Let me see things clearly!"

"You have a lifetime in which to see things clearly, " I answered. "How can that concern me now?" And I passed on into the house. 

During the morning I wandered restless. For a while I lay on thegrass down behind the pines. How deep and clear are the coveredsprings of memory! All at once it was a morning in my boyhood onmy father's farm. I, a little Saul of Tarsus among the birds, wason my way to the hedge-rows and woods, as to Damascus, breathingout threatenings and slaughter. Then suddenly the childish miracle, which no doubt had been preparing silently within my nature, wroughtitself out; for from the distant forest trees, from the old orchard, from thicket and fence, from the wide green meadows, and down outof the depths of the blue sky itself, a vast chorus of innocentcreatures sang to my newly opened ears the same words: "Whypersecutest thou me?" One sang it with indignation; another withremonstrance; still another with resignation; others yet withethereal sadness or wild elusive pain. Once more the house-wrenaloud, "_per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test_!"And as I peeped into the brush-pile, again the brown thrush, buildingwithin, said, "_thou--thou--thou_!"

Through all the years since I had thought myself changed, and cravedno greater glory than to be accounted the chief of their apostles. But now I was stained once more with the old guilt, and once moreI could hear the birds in my yard singing that old, old chorusagainst man's inhumanity. 

Towards the middle of the afternoon I went away across the country--byany direction; I cared not what. On my way back I passed througha large rear lot belonging to my neighbors, and adjoining my own, in which is my stable. There has lately been imported into thispart of Kentucky from England the much-prized breed of the beautifulwhite Berkshire. As I crossed the lot, near the milk-trough, ash-heap, and paring of fruit and vegetables thrown from my neighbor'skitchen, I saw a litter of these pigs having their awkward sportover some strange red plaything, which one after another of themwould shake with all its might, root and tear at, or tread intogreater shapelessness. It was all there was left of him. 

I entered my long yard. If I could have been spared the sightof that! The sun was setting. Around me was the last peace andbeauty of the world. Through a narrow avenue of trees I could seemy house, and on its clustering vines fell the angry red of thesun darting across the cool green fields. 

The last hour of light touches the birds as it touches us. Whenthey sing in the morning, it is with the happiness of the earth;but as the shadows fall strangely about them, and the helplessnessof the night comes on, their voices seem to be lifted up like theloftiest poetry of the human spirit, with sympathy for realitiesand mysteries past all understanding. 

A great choir was hymning now. On the tops of the sweet oldhoneysuckles the cat-birds; robins in the low boughs of maples; onthe high limb of the elm the silvery-throated lark, who had stoppedas he passed from meadow to meadow; on a fence rail of the distantwheat-field the quail--and many another. I walked to and fro, receiving the voice of each as a spear hurled at my body. The sunsank. The shadows rushed on and deepened. Suddenly, as I turnedonce more in my path, I caught sight of the figure of Georgianamoving straight towards me from the direction of the garden. Shewas bareheaded, dressed in white; and she advanced over the smoothlawn, through evergreens and shrubs, with a gentle grace and dignityof movement such as I had never beheld. I kept my weary pace, andwhen she came up I did not lift my eyes. 

"Adam!" she said, with gentle reproach. I stood still then, butwith my face turned away. 

"Forgive me!" All girlishness was gone out of her voice. It wasthe woman at last. 

I turned my face farther from her, and we stood in silence. 

"I have suffered enough, Adam, " she pleaded. 

I answered quietly, doggedly, for there was nothing left in me toappeal to:

"I am glad we can part kindly. . . . Neither of us may care muchfor the kindness now, but we will not be sorry hereafter. . . . The quarrels, the mistakes, the right and the wrong of our lives, the misunderstandings--they are so strange, so pitiful, so full ofpain, and come so soon to nothing. " And I lifted my hat, and tookthe path towards my house. 

There was a point ahead where it divided, the other branch leadingtowards the little private gate through which Georgiana had come. Just before reaching the porch I looked that way, with the ideathat I should see Georgiana's white figure moving across the lawn;but I discovered that she was following me. Mounting my door-steps, I turned. She had paused on the threshold. I waited. At lengthshe said, in a voice low and sorrowful:

"And you are not going to forgive me, Adam?"

"I _do_ forgive you!" The silence fell and lasted. I no longersaw her face. At last her despairing voice barely reached me again:

"And--is--_that_--all?"

I had no answer to make, and sternly waited for her to go. 

A moment longer she lingered, then turned slowly away; and I watchedher figure growing fainter and fainter till it was lost. I sprangafter her; my voice rang out hollow, and broke with terror and painand longing:

"Georgiana! Georgiana!"

"Oh, Adam, _Adam_!" I heard her cry, with low, piercing tenderness, as she ran back to me through the darkness. 

When we separated we lighted fresh candles and set them in ourwindows, to burn a pure pathway of flame across the interveningvoid. Henceforth we are like poor little foolish children, sosick and lonesome in the night without one another. Happy, happynight to come when one short candle will do for us both!

. . . Ah, but the long, long silence of the trees! . . .