est a moment upon a twig, beneath
which in the grass were a few late dandelions, she felt coming over her
a weakness she could not resist. As a matter of fact, the bird mother
had been overworked and so killed. Birds, overpressed, die as human
beings do. So the mother bird, after a few moments, fell off the twig
upon which she had paused for rest, and lay, a pretty little dead thing
down in the grass among the dandelions. Then, of course, her children
gasped and writhed and clamored in the nest, and at last, almost
together, died of starvation.

Days and days before this the history of the bluebird family had ended.
The four little bluebirds, being merely helpless young birds, lone and
hungry, did nothing for a few hours after their bereavement but call for
food, as was a habit of theirs. But nothing came to them--neither their
father nor their mother came. They didn't know much except to be hungry,
these little bluebirds. They couldn't know much, of course, as young as
they were, and being but bird things with stomachs, they just wanted
something to eat. They did not even know that if they did not get the
food they wanted so much the ants would come and the other creatures of
nature, and eat them. But they cried aloud, and more and more faintly,
and at last were still. And the ants came. They found four little things
with blue feathers just sprouting upon them, particularly upon the
wings, where the growth seemed strongest and bluest, but the four
little things were dead. It was all delightful for the ants and the
other small things; all good in their way, who came seeking food. The
very young birds, which had died gasping, that a woman might wear bright
feathers in her hat, were fine eating for the ants.

Of course, one cannot tell very well in detail how a starving young bird
dies. It is but a little creature with great possibilities of song and
beauty and happiness; but if something big and strong kills its father
and mother, then there is nothing for it but to lie back in the nest and
open its mouth in vain for food, and then it must finally, a
preposterously awfully suffering little lump of flesh and starting
feathers, look up at the sky and die in hungry agony. Then the ants
come.

The story I have told of the two bird families and how they died is
true. Worst of all it is that theirs is a tragedy repeated in reality
thousands and thousands of times every year; yet the beautiful woman I
tried to describe at th