les need a good stock of patience as
well as of resignation, for the infants of both are unceasing in their
cries, and fertile in inventing variations in manner and inflection,
that would deceive those most familiar with them. Two or three times in
the weeks that followed, I rushed out of the house to find some very
distressed bird, who, I was sure, from the cries, must be impaled alive
on a butcher-bird's meat-hook, or undergoing torture at the hands--or
beak of somebody. It was rather dangerous going out at that time (just
at dusk), for it was the chosen hour for young men and maidens, of whom
there were several, to wander about under the trees. Often, before I
gave up going out at that hour, my glass, turned to follow a flitting
wing, would bring before my startled gaze a pair of sentimental young
persons, who doubtless thought I was spying upon them. My only safety
was in directing my glass into the trees, where nothing but wings could
be sentimental, and if a bird flitted below the level of branches, to
consider him lost. On following up the cry, I always found a young
oriole and a hard-worked father feeding him. The voice did not even
suggest an oriole to me, until I had been deceived two or three times
and understood it.

The young ones of the orchard oriole's nest lived up to the traditions
of the family by being inveterate cry-babies, and making so much noise
they could be heard far around. Sometimes their mother addressed them
in a similar tone to their own, but the father resigned himself to the
inevitable, and fed with dogged perseverance.

The apple-tree nest looked in the morning sun of a bright flax color,
and two of the young were mounted on the edge, dressing their yellow
satin breasts, and gleaming in the sunshine like gold.

A Baltimore oriole, passing over, seemed to be attracted by a familiar
quality of sound, for he came down, alighted about a foot from the nest,
and looked with interest upon the charming family scene. The protector
of the pretty brood was near, but he kept his seat, and made no
objections to the friendly call. Indeed, he flew away while the guest
was still there, and having satisfied his curiosity, the Baltimore also
departed upon his own business.

When the sun appeared over the tree-tops, he came armed with all his
terrors. The breeze dwindled and died; the very leaves hung lifeless on
the trees, and though, knowing that

"Somewhere the wind is blowing,
Though here whe