in a
cavity of a decayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joined
the jays in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the
fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day in
the old apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm and
approached to within eyeshot. The bluebirds were cautious and hovered
about uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but the jays were
bolder and took turns looking in at the cavity, and deriding the poor,
shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the entrance of the hole, and
flirt and peer and attitudinize, and then fly away crying "Thief,
thief, thief!" at the top of his voice.

I climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just descry the owl
clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in and took him out,
giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He was as
red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a cat. He made no effort to escape,
but planted his claws in my forefinger and clung there with a grip that
soon grew uncomfortable. I placed him in the loft of an outhouse, in
hopes of getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very
willing prisoner, scarcely moving at all, even when approached and
touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-closed,
sleepy eyes. But at night what a change! how alert, how wild, how
active! He was like another bird; he darted about with wide, fearful
eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. I opened the window, and
swiftly, but as silent as a shadow, he glided out into the congenial
darkness, and perhaps, ere this, has revenged himself upon the sleeping
jay or bluebird that first betrayed his hiding-place.

III

STRAWBERRIES

Was it old Dr. Parr who said or sighed in his last illness, "Oh, if I
can only live till strawberries come!" The old scholar imagined that,
if he could weather it till then, the berries would carry him through.
No doubt he had turned from the drugs and the nostrums, or from the
hateful food, to the memory of the pungent, penetrating, and
unspeakably fresh quality of the strawberry with the deepest longing.
The very thought of these crimson lobes, embodying as it were the first
glow and ardor of the young summer, and with their power to unsheathe
the taste and spur the nagging appetite, made life seem possible and
desirable to him.

The strawberry is always the hope of the invalid, and sometimes, no
doubt, his salvation. It is the firs