. Bird-land echoes; . some hope for it, but our cuckoo is too un-canny a bird for us to believe that it will ever returnto happier conditions. ** I have flowers from April to the end of fall, saidAunt Peggy, whenshe returned,andI dont have nofavorites ; theyreall good enough for me ;but what I like best, ifthere is any choice, isthem I remember the just young again when theyellow rose comes out in she spoke, a little house-wren filled the garden with melody,and I fancied that auntie thought ofthe days when she was young, she hadsuch a far-off look while the bird wassinging. *
. Bird-land echoes; . some hope for it, but our cuckoo is too un-canny a bird for us to believe that it will ever returnto happier conditions. ** I have flowers from April to the end of fall, saidAunt Peggy, whenshe returned,andI dont have nofavorites ; theyreall good enough for me ;but what I like best, ifthere is any choice, isthem I remember the just young again when theyellow rose comes out in she spoke, a little house-wren filled the garden with melody,and I fancied that auntie thought ofthe days when she was young, she hadsuch a far-off look while the bird wassinging. ** Shop! rang out on the perfume-ladenair, and Aunt Peggy was gone. It was ahot August day and everybody was thirsty, so I wasagain alone. Looking about me, I saw the shadowof the cuckoo fall across the path, and marking thedirection taken by the bird, my eyes fell on a wrensmossy mansion near the kitchen door. The cuckoowas forgotten. Above the wrens home on the loweaves was a box of house-leek that drooped grace- 12*. House-wren. 138 Bird-Land Echoes. fully and shaded the little minstrels home. It was apretty sight. The wrens are pugnacious, and at times have hardstruggles because of the sparrows numbers, but theyhave not fared so ill as the bluebirds. They still re-main with me from April until frost, housed in boxesthat no sparrow can enter, and when the wren is athome they dare not approach. As a domestic birdthe house-wren is, or, more correctly speaking, was,a close second to the chippy, and some claimfirst place for it. At times it appears even tamer,because it is not afraid of cats, and will snap de-fiance in tabbys ears as she sleeps on the sunnyside of the garden fence ; and it can do what, pos-sibly, the poor ** chippy cannot,—that is, sing. Itmakes the whole door-yard thrill when it pro-nounces its satisfaction with May mornings. In thegood old times the wren made an excellent impres-sion ; people regarded it lovingly and built housesfor it, and looked in spring f
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1896
