ut how did his new friend feel about it? Would she go with him? Ah!
Wouldn't she? Had not she, too, put on a wedding-garment just like his?
And what was she there for, anyhow, if not to be wooed, and to find a
mate, and to fly away with him a thousand miles to the north, and there,
beside some lonely little lake, brood over her eggs and her young? Her
wing was gaining strength all the time, and at last she was ready. You
should have heard them laugh when the great day came and they pulled out
for Michigan--Mahng a little in the lead, as became the larger and
stronger, and his new wife close behind. There had been nearly a week of
cooler weather just before the start, which had delayed them a little,
but now the south wind was blowing again, and over and over it seemed to
say,

"_And we go, go, go away from here!
On the other side the world we're overdue!
'Send the road lies clear before you
When the old Spring-fret comes o'er you,
And the Red Gods call for you._"

And the road was clear, and they went. Up, and up, and up; higher and
higher, till straight ahead, stretching away to the very edge of the
world, lay league after league of sunshine and air, only waiting the
stroke of their wings. Now steady, steady! Beat, beat, beat! And the old
earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour! No soaring--their wings
were too short for that sort of work--and no quick wheeling to right or
left, but hurtling on with whizzing pinions and eager eyes, straight
toward the goal. Was it any wonder that they were happy, and that
joyful shouts and wild peals of laughter came ringing down from the sky
to tell us poor earthbound men and women that somewhere up in the blue,
beyond the reach of our short-sighted eyes, the loons were hurrying
home?

[Illustration: "_The old earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour._"]

Over the fresh fields, green with the young wheat; over the winding
rivers and the smiling lakes; over the--shut your eyes, and dream a
little while, and see if you can imagine what it was like. Does it make
you wish you were a loon yourself? Never mind; some day, perhaps, we too
shall take our wedding-journeys in the air; not on feathered pinions,
but with throbbing engines and whizzing wheels, and with all the power
of steam or electricity to lift us and bear us onward. We shall skim the
prairies and leap the mountains, and roam over the ocean like the
wan