A Kentucky cardinal ; and, Aftermath . hesof white on tail and breast and wing for comingflecks of snow. Save only him — proud, solitary stranger inour unfriendly land—the fiery grosbeak. Naturein Kentucky has no wintry harmonies for could find these only among the tufts of theOctober sumac, or in the gum-tree when itstands a pillar of red twilight fire in the darkNovember woods, or in the far depths of thecrimson sunset skies, where, indeed, he seemsto have been nested, and whence to have comeas a messenger of beauty, bearing on his wingsthe light of his diviner home. With almost every
A Kentucky cardinal ; and, Aftermath . hesof white on tail and breast and wing for comingflecks of snow. Save only him — proud, solitary stranger inour unfriendly land—the fiery grosbeak. Naturein Kentucky has no wintry harmonies for could find these only among the tufts of theOctober sumac, or in the gum-tree when itstands a pillar of red twilight fire in the darkNovember woods, or in the far depths of thecrimson sunset skies, where, indeed, he seemsto have been nested, and whence to have comeas a messenger of beauty, bearing on his wingsthe light of his diviner home. With almost everything earthly that he touchesthis high herald of the trees is in his kind he is without a peer. Evenwhen the whole company of summer voyagershave sailed back to Kentucky, singing and laugh-ing and kissing one another under the enormousgreen umbrella of Natures leaves, he still isbeyond them all in loveliness. But when theyhave been wafted away again to brighter skiesand to soft islands over the sea, and he is left16. A DISTANT SHARPSHOOTER. l7 alone on the edge of that Northern world whichhe hae dared invade and inhabit, it is then, amidblack clouds and drifting snows, that the gor-geous cardinal stands forth in the ideal pictureof his destiny. For it is then that his beauty ismost conspicuous, and that Death, lover of thepeerless, strikes at him from afar. So that heretires to the twilight solitude of his wild for-tress. Let him even show his noble head andbreast at a slit in its green window-shades, anda ray flashes from it to the eye of a cat; lethim, as spring comes on, burst out in despera-tion and mount to the tree-tops which he loves,and his gleaming red coat betrays him to thepoised hawk as to a distant sharpshooter; inthe barn near by an owl is waiting to do hisnight marketing at various tender-meat stalls;and, above all, the eye and heart of man arehis diurnal and nocturnal foe. What wonderif he is so shy, so rare, so secluded, this flame-coloured p
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