AMONG THE TREE-TOPS

ROBIN’S CAROL[7]

HOW THE BIRDS CAME

An Indian Legend

“Many years ago,” says the old Indian Grandmother, “the Great Spirit visited the earth. As he walked over valley and hill he said, ‘It is all beautiful and good. But the Great Spirit loves the trees best. See how they make the hills and valleys radiant with their green. Earth would be fairer still,’ said the Great Spirit, ‘if there were trees everywhere. I would have great forests cover the mountain sides. I would see trees as far as my eye can reach across the land. I would have a tree spring up wherever my foot touches the earth!’ And it was as the Great Spirit wished. As he wandered up and down the mountains and valleys and across the plains, little trees sprang up in his footsteps, until the whole earth, like the hills and valleys, was radiant in green. ‘The Great Spirit loves the little trees best,’ he said, when he looked upon them. ‘Little trees, I will watch over you and guard you. I will send gentle rains that you may have water to drink. I will send my warm sun to shine upon you. And you must grow and grow and grow.’ All summer long the Great Spirit cared for them, and when the first summer had passed and the winter came, the little trees had grown until they spread their branches far and wide.

“But one autumn day a great change came over the radiant green. All the leaves on the trees turned to beautiful colours—red, yellow, brown, gold. ‘They are beautiful, beautiful,’ said the Great Spirit. ‘My trees have never been so beautiful before.’

“As he spoke a gentle wind stirred the branches and the Great Spirit saw the leaves drop from the trees, flutter through the air and fall to the ground.

“‘See,’ he exclaimed, ‘the leaves of my trees fall to the earth where they will wither and die. This shall not be. Behold, my leaves, I am the Great Spirit. I will give you breath and strength. You shall not die—you shall live forever.’

“He breathed softly upon the coloured leaves. In a moment hundreds of leaves moved, then fluttered, then flew away—a flock, of beautiful birds. The red-brown oak leaves became robins; all the yellow and gold leaves became yellow birds. The red-maple leaves flew away beautiful red birds, while the withered brown leaves scattered around, sprang up sparrows and larks.”

The Indian Grandmother says that is how we got our first birds, and that is why the birds love the trees and always live among them.

HOW THE BIRDS LEARNED TO BUILD NESTS[8]

James Baldwin

There is an old story which says that the magpie was the first bird to build a nest.

One day all the birds came to her and said, “Mrs. Magpie, won’t you teach us how to make pretty nests like your own?”

“Oh, yes,” said the magpie, kindly. “I will show you just how it is done.” Then she told them to sit around her, and she would build a nest while they were looking on. She said, “You have only to notice what I do.”

She brought some mud from the side of the brook and made it into a kind of round cake. The birds sat very still, and watched her until the cake was finished. Then the thrush cried out, “Oh, I see how the nest is built! You first make a cake of mud and then pat it down in the middle.” And she flew away to try for herself; and no thrush has learned anything about nest-building since.

The magpie next took some twigs, and laid them round the cake of mud. “Say no more!” cried the blackbird. “I understand it all.” Away he flew to the green thickets by the river; and that is how blackbirds build their nests to this very day.

Then the magpie put a thin layer of mud on the twigs, and smoothed it a little with her beak. “Oh, that is all that I need to know,” said the wise owl. “Who—who—who would have thought it so simple a thing?” He flew to the top of a great oak tree, where he sat for a long time, looking at the moon and saying, “Who—who—who!”

Then the magpie took some long, slender twigs, and twined them round the outside. “That is just the thing!” cried the song sparrow, and off he went. And song sparrows still make their nests by twining twigs.

After this, the magpie took some feathers and fine moss, and lined the nest until it was a very comfortable place indeed.

“That suits me!” said the starling, and off he flew. And everybody knows that starlings have built well-lined nests ever since.

The magpie kept on working and working. But every bird, when he had learned a little about nest-building, flew away without waiting to the end of the lesson. At last no one was left but the turtledove. It had paid no attention to what the magpie was doing, and so had not learned anything at all.

It sat on a branch above the magpie’s nest, and kept saying over and over again, “Take two, two, two, two!” But it was looking far away toward the blue mountains in the west, and its thoughts were all with its dear mate whom a cruel hawk had lately snatched away.

“Take two, two, two, two,” mourned the dove. The magpie heard this just as she was twining a slender twig around the top of her nest. So, without looking up, she said, “One will be enough.”

But the dove kept on saying, “Take two, two, two, two.” This made the magpie angry, and she said, “Don’t I tell you that one will be enough?”

“Take two, two, two, two!” still cried the turtledove. At last the magpie looked up and saw that no bird was near her but the silly dove.

“I’ll never give another lesson in nest building!” she cried. And she flew away and left the dove alone in the tree.

It was no use, after that, for any bird to ask the magpie how to make a nest; and, from that day to this, no bird has learned anything new about its trade.

All the blackbirds, the thrushes, the owls, and the doves, still build just as they did a thousand years ago. None of them seem to want better nests; and I doubt if any could learn how to make them now, even though the magpie should try to teach them again.

OUT OF THE NEST.[9]

Maud Lindsay

Once upon a time a mother bird and father bird built a nest in a tree. It was made of straw and leaves and all sorts of wonderful things, and even had lace trimmings on it.

Soon after the nest was finished, the mother bird put two eggs in it, and then she and the father bird thought of nothing but keeping those eggs safe and warm. Mother bird sat on them day and night; and even when father bird would say, “You really must fly about a little and let me take care of the eggs,” she did not like to leave them.

After a while two little birds came out of the shells, which was just what she had been hoping for all the time. The baby birds were both so weak and small that they could do nothing at all for themselves but open their mouths very wide and call, “Peep, peep! mother, dear, peep!” Mother bird and father bird were busy all day getting them something to eat. By and by they began to grow, and then they had soft feather clothes to wear, which are the best clothes in the world for baby birds.

Mother bird said to them one day, “You are almost ready to learn to fly”; and then they felt very large. That same day mother bird and father bird flew away together to get something for dinner; and while they were gone the little birds heard a very queer noise which seemed to come from a pond near the tree. This is the way it sounded: “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!”

“Oh! what can it be?” said the sister bird. “I’ll peep over the side of the nest and see,” said her brother. But when he put his head out he could see nothing although he heard the sound very plainly: “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!” Then he leaned out a little farther and a little farther, till his head was dizzy. “Peep, peep! You’ll fall!” cried the sister bird; and, sure enough, she had scarcely said it before he tumbled out of the nest, down, down to the ground! He was not hurt, but, oh, how frightened he was! “Peep, peep! mother, dear, peep!” he cried. “Peep!” cried the sister bird up in the nest, but the mother and father were too far away to hear their calls.

The brother bird hopped about on the ground and looked around him. He was near the pond now, and the sound was very loud: “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!” “Peep, peep, peep!” called the birdie, and in a moment up hopped a big frog. This was an old school-teacher frog, and he had been teaching all the little frogs to sing. “Kerchunk! Kerchunk!” said he. “How can I teach my frogs to sing when you are making such a noise?”

“Peep, peep! I want my mamma,” said the baby bird. Then the frog saw how young the birdie was, and he was very sorry for him. “Come with me,” he said, “and I will teach you to sing.” But the baby bird cried louder than ever at this, and a mother dove, who was singing her babies to sleep in a neighbouring tree, flew down to see what could be the matter.

“I can’t begin to get my children to sleep in all this fuss,” she said to the frog, but when she saw the little bird she was just as sorry as the frog had been. “Poor, dear baby,” she cried. “I will fly right off and find your mamma for you.” So she told her children to be good and quiet, and then away she flew. Before long she met the father and mother, and they all came back in a great hurry. Then they tried to get the baby bird into the nest again.

“He is entirely too young to be out of the nest,” cried his mother, “and he must get in again at once.” “Spread your wings and fly, as I do,” said the father bird. So the baby bird spread his wings and tried to fly; but, try as he would, he could not reach the nest in the tree.

“Put him into my school, and I will teach him to swim,” said the frog; “that is better than flying, and a great deal easier to learn, I am sure.” This was so kind of the frog that the mother bird thanked him; but she said she had to be very careful with her children, and that she was afraid the water might give the little bird a cold. While they were talking, they heard somebody coming along, whistling the jolliest tune!

“Dear me! Dear me!” cried the birds. “There comes a boy!” “He’s apt to have stones in his pocket,” said the frog. “He will carry my darling off and put him in a cage! Oh, fly! fly!” begged the mother bird. But before the baby bird even had time to say, “Peep!” the boy came in sight.

Then the father bird flew over the boy’s head and the mother bird down in front of him. The frog croaked and the dove cooed, but none of them could hide the little bird from him. “If you hurt him, I’ll peck your eyes out!” cried the poor mother, who hardly knew what she was saying; but the boy picked the little bird up, just as if he did not hear her. “Oh, what shall I do?” cried the mother bird.

Then the boy looked at her and at the tree where the nest was. “Coo, coo, coo! I think I know what he is going to do,” said the dove. “There’s no telling,” croaked the frog; and they all watched and wondered, while the boy put the bird in his pocket and began to climb the tree. He swung himself from branch to branch, climbing higher all the time, until at last he reached the pretty nest where the sister bird waited for her mother to come home.

Mother bird and father bird flew to the top of the tree to watch the boy. “Suppose he should take her, too,” said the mother bird. But what do you think he did? Yes, indeed. He put the brother bird back in the nest, as well as the mother bird could have done it herself.

“Thank you! Thank you!” sang the mother and father as the boy scrambled down again. “Peep, peep! Thank you!” called the little birds from the nest. “Coo, coo! I knew,” cried the dove. “Kerchunk! Kerchunk! I should like to have him in my school,” said the frog, as he hopped away to his pond.

THE STORY OF BLUE-WINGS

Mary Stewart

There was once an old apple-orchard. It was full of beautiful things. In the spring the trees were covered with pink and white blossoms, while the soft green grass was sprinkled with dandelions. In the autumn the fruit was scarlet, and beneath the trees the grass, which had grown high and feathery, waved in the wind.

But there was something else in the orchard which was more wonderful than the grass or the dandelions, the blossoms or the fruit. Sometimes early in the spring there was a sudden flash of blue wings above the trees, then a bird’s song, so clear and sweet and joyous that it made us think of blue skies and of dancing blue waves. It came from the owner of those splendid blue wings, and we knew that the king of the orchard had returned from his winter’s trip, the bluebird had come home.

High up in an old tree there was a little hole and there the bluebird made his nest. From the outside the hole looked dark and hard, but inside it was as soft and cosy as the prettiest nest in the world. It was lined with bits of feathers and down and it was quite big, plenty big enough for the bluebird and his wife. Her feathers were not as bright as his nor her song as beautiful, but she could do something even more marvellous than wearing bright feathers or singing joyous songs. She could lay eggs.

And so she laid five small, bluish eggs in that cosy home. Then she sat on them, keeping them warm with her soft little body, while the father bird flashed his splendid wings back and forth through the orchard, bringing food to the little mother bird and singing his happy song, happier than ever now that he could tell of those precious eggs.

At last the shells went “crack,” and five little baby birds opened their big bills very wide and chirped for food. Then how busy their father and mother were kept!

I have not time to tell you all that happened during the summer, when the young ones learned to fly, learned too a few notes of that song which makes us think of the sky and the sea. None of them were as beautiful as their father, none of their songs were as perfect, but their mother told them to have patience, to try hard to fly straight, and to sing clearly, and then, perhaps, after their winter in the warm South, they would come back to the orchard with wings that would flash, and with a song that would be like the first joyous call of the spring time.

And so, when the first cold weather came, four of the young birds flew away with their mother and father. But one was left behind! Poor little bird, I do not know whether he had fallen from a tree or been hit by a stone. I only know that one wing was broken, and he lay on the hard ground, his blue feathers dull, his eyes dim.

There a little girl found him, and she lifted him tenderly and carried him through the orchard to the white farm house beyond. She laid the poor little creature in a big wooden cage, and fed him with bread crumbs soaked in water until his eyes grew brighter and he tried to lift his wings. But when he found that he could not, because one was broken, you know, he gave a chirp of pain and huddled down forlornly on the floor of the cage. But soon, with all this care, he grew strong again, even if he could not fly, and he and the little girl had nice times together. The door of the cage was always open and Blue-wings, that is the name the child gave him, although his feathers were not so very blue, would hop down to the table and around the room, always ending by lighting on the little girl’s shoulder. He would eat from her hand, and sometimes he gave little chirps which meant “thank you.”

He had never sung since the day when he had tried to raise his wings and had dropped them in pain. Sometimes he dreamed of the orchard, of flying swiftly through the trees and of singing joyous songs to greet the sunshine. Then he would open his eyes and see the cosy kitchen and his dear little girl friend, and he would hop down sadly and sit on her shoulder, trying to forget his longings, trying to chirp cheerfully when she gave him crumbs.

As the winter passed and the days grew warm and bright, Blue-wings found himself dreaming of his old free life most of the time, and between the dreams the longing to fly and sing was stronger than ever. One day the window next his cage was left wide open and through it the soft south wind brought the fragrance of the apple blossoms, and the whir and hum of the little creatures who were busy greeting the spring time. Suddenly Blue-wings felt as if he must fly and sing or his heart would break. And then—was it a dream, he wondered—he lifted his wings and flew right out of the window. Through the orchard he darted, above the blossoming trees, his blue wings flashing in the sunshine. Even his father’s wings were not as splendidly blue as his, and they were so strong!

It was no dream now, he knew; it was all true. And as he mounted higher and higher he sang a song so clear and sweet and joyful that the farmer ploughing in the field stopped, and listened with tears in his eyes. Blue-wing’s song made him think of the tossing sea he had lived beside when he was a boy. And the little girl heard it, as she stood at the farm-house door, and she stood smiling up into the blue sky with thoughts of angels in her heart.

“Did Blue-wings ever come back to the little girl,” you ask? He never came back to the cage or the farm-house kitchen, but he lived in the orchard and had a nest there. And whenever the child saw a wonderfully blue glimmer through the branches, or heard a most beautiful bird’s song, she knew that Blue-wings was near. And she remembered that it was through her love and her care that he had lived and grown strong, able to take his place as king of the orchard, able by his song to bring into people’s hearts happiness too great for words.

AN EASTERN LEGEND

Grace Duffield Goodwin

THE HOUSE WREN

Neltje Blanchan

When you are sound asleep some April morning, a tiny brown bird, just returned from a long visit south, will probably alight on the perch in front of one of your boxes, peep in the doorhole, enter—although his pert little cocked-up tail has to be lowered to let him through—look about with approval, go out, spring to the roof and pour out of his wee throat a gushing torrent of music. The song seems to bubble up faster than he can sing. After the wren’s happy discovery of a place to live, his song will go off in a series of musical explosions all day long, now from the roof, now from the clothes posts, the fence, the barn, or the woodpile. There never was a more tireless, spirited, brilliant singer. From the intensity of his feelings, he sometimes droops that expressive little tail of his, which is usually so erect and saucy.

With characteristic energy, he frequently begins to carry twigs into the house before he finds a mate. The day little Jenny Wren appears on the scene, how he does sing! Dashing off for more twigs, but stopping to sing to her every other minute, he helps furnish the cottage quickly, but, of course, he overdoes—he carries in more twigs and hay and feathers than the little house can hold, then pulls half of them out again. Jenny gathers, too, for she is a bustling housewife and arranges matters with neatness and despatch. Neither vermin nor dust will she tolerate within her well-kept home. Everything she does to suit herself pleases her ardent little lover. He applauds her with song; he flies about after her with a nervous desire to protect; he seems beside himself with happiness. Let any one pass too near his best beloved, and he begins to chatter excitedly: “Chit-chit-chit-chit,” as much as to say, “Oh, do go away; go quickly! Can’t you see how nervous and fidgety you make me?”

If you fancy that Jenny Wren, who is patiently sitting on the little pinkish, chocolate spotted eggs in the centre of her feather bed, is a demure, angelic creature, you have never seen her attack the sparrow, nearly twice her size, that dares put his impudent head inside her door. Oh! how she flies at him! How she chatters and scolds! What a plucky little shrew she is, after all! Her piercing, chattering, scolding notes are fairly hissed into his ears until he is thankful enough to escape.

If the bluebirds had her courage and hot, quick temper, they would never let the sparrows drive them away from their boxes. Unfortunately a hole large enough to admit a bluebird will easily admit those grasping monopolists; but Jenny Wren is safe, if she did but know it, in her house with its tiny front door. It is amusing to see a sparrow try to work his shoulders through the small hole of an empty wren house, pushing and kicking madly, but all in vain.

What rent do the wrens pay for their little houses? No man is clever enough to estimate the vast numbers of insects on your place that they destroy. They eat nothing else, which is the chief reason why they are so lively and excitable. Unable to soar after flying insects because of their short, round wings, they keep, as a rule, rather close to the ground which their finely barred brown feathers so closely match. Whether hunting for grubs in the wood-pile, scrambling over the brush heap after spiders, searching among the trees to provide a dinner for their large families, or creeping, like little feathered mice, in queer nooks and crannies among the outbuildings on the farm, they are always busy in your interest which is also theirs. It certainly pays, in every sense, to encourage the wrens.

THE CHILDREN OF WIND AND THE CLAN OF PEACE A CHRIST LEGEND

Fiona MacLeod

It was the last month of the last year of the seven years’ silence and peace. When would that be, you ask?

Surely what other would it be than the seven holy years when Jesus the Christ was a little lad.

It was a still day. The little white flowers that were called Breaths of Hope and that we now call Stars of Bethlehem were so hushed in quiet that the shadows of the moths lay on them like the dark motionless violet in the hearts of pansies. In the long swords of tender grass the multitude of the daisies were white as milk faintly stained with flusht dews fallen from roses. On the meadows of white poppies were long shadows blue as the blue lagoons of the sky among drifting snow white moors of cloud. Three white aspens on the pastures were in a still sleep; their tremulous leaves made no rustle; ewes and lambs were sleeping and yearling kids opened and closed their eyes among the garths of white clover.

It was Sabbath and Jesus walked alone. When He came to a little rise in the grass He turned and looked back at the house where His parents dwelled. Suddenly He heard a noise as of many birds and turned and looked beyond the low upland where He stood. A pool of pure water lay in the hollow, fed by a ceaseless wellspring and round it and over it circled birds whose breasts were grey as pearl and whose necks shone purple and grass green and rose. The noise was of their wings, for though the birds were beautiful they were voiceless and dumb as flowers.

At the edge of the pool stood two figures like angels, but the child did not know them. One He saw was beautiful as Night, and one beautiful as Morning.

He drew near.

“I have lived seven years,” He said, “and I wish to send peace to the far ends of the world.”

“Tell your secret to the birds,” said one.

“Tell your secret to the birds,” said the other.

So Jesus called the birds.

“Come,” He cried, and they came.

Seven came flying from the left, from the side of the angel beautiful as Night. Seven came flying from the right, from the side of the angel beautiful as Morning.

To the first He said: “Look into my heart.”

But they wheeled about Him, and with new found voices mocked, crying, “How could we see into your heart that is hidden ...” and mocked and derided, crying, “What is Peace! ... leave us alone. Leave us alone.”

So Christ said to them: “I know you for the birds of Evil. Henceforth ye shall be black as night, and be children of the winds.”

To the seven other birds which circled about Him, voiceless, and brushing their wings against His arms, He cried:

“Look into my heart.”

And they swerved and hung before Him in a maze of wings, and looked into His pure heart: and, as they looked, a soft murmurous sound came from them—drowsy, sweet, full of peace—and as they hung there like a breath in frost they became white as snow.

“Ye are the Doves of the Spirit,” said Christ, “and to you I will commit that which ye have seen. Henceforth shall your plumage be white and your voices be the voices of peace.”

The young Christ turned, for He heard Mary calling to the sheep and goats, and knew that dayset was come and that in the valleys the gloaming was already rising like smoke from the urns of the twilight. When he looked back he saw that seven white doves were in the cedar beyond the pool, cooing in low ecstasy of peace and awaiting through sleep and dreams the rose-red pathways of the dawn. Down the long grey reaches of the ebbing day He saw seven birds rising and falling on the wind black as black water in caves, black as the darkness of night in old pathless woods.

And that is how the first doves became white, and how the first crows became black and were called by a name that means the clan of darkness, the children of wind.