will hear. I don't allude so
much to the sparrows and such stay-at-homes as to my migratory, or
go-away birds. I'm sure they'd be delighted at a poet's way of putting
things. It will give them something to go for. As for myself, I've not
started yet, so we'll proceed to discuss a certain odd saying for which
it seems the world is indebted to one sort of these migratory birds:

"EVERYTHING IS LOVELY, AND THE GOOSE HANGS HIGH."

This expression, the Little School-ma'am says, is a corruption of an
old-fashioned saying that originated in the early days of this country.

As most of you know, wild geese, when they migrate in autumn, form
themselves into lines shaped like the letter V, the leader flying at the
point, the two lines following; and as they sail away, far above the
trees, and beyond all danger from guns--on those cold mornings when the
air is clear, and the sky beautifully blue--they seem full of glee, and
join in a chorus, "_Honk, honk, honk!_"

Any one who has heard those curiously sounding notes, the Little
School-ma'am says, never could mistake them for anything else. And the
folks on the earth below who heard the birds' wild call, in old times,
realized the happiness of the winged creatures in being so high and
safe. And so it became quite natural, when two persons met each other
under peculiarly favorable circumstances for this or that enterprise,
for them to say: "Everything is lovely and the goose honks high!"

GIRLS! TO THE RESCUE!

Before we leave our dear birds, moreover, I have a special message for
you this month in their behalf:

"You must not forget, friend Jack," says the Deacon, "to give the boys
and girls, especially the girls, my May-time sermon about the Audubon
Society."

Forget it? Not I, indeed! Nor would you, if you could have seen the
honest and hearty indignation of the good Deacon and the Little
School-ma'am, as he read to her a printed circular telling all about the
monstrous wrong which the Audubon Society has nobly begun to fight. You
must know, dear girls, that this "monstrous wrong" is the custom of
wearing feathers and skins of birds on your hats and dresses. As I am an
honest Jack, I don't see how girls and their mammas, who, as everybody
knows, are supposed to have hearts more tender than men or boys, could
ever have been induced to follow so abominable a fashion. "Abominable"
is rather a strong word, I suppose; but it is the very one which the
good Deacon used wh