nd shaped their dreams, as dream-stuff drifts to their
sweet-voiced cousins in the meadows with the lap and lave of the streams.
A carriage rolled by. The clank of hoofs disturbed none of them. Some one
slammed the door of an apothecary-shop across the street, and hurried off.
Not a sparrow stirred.

I was trying to see whether the birds slept with their heads beneath their
wings. Apparently they did, for I could not make out a head, though some
of the sleepers hung over the street within ten feet of the lamp-post. But
they were all above the light, with only their breasts out of the shadows,
and to be certain I must make a bird move. Finding that the noises were
not likely to arouse them, I threw a stick against one of the laden limbs.
There were heads then, plenty of them, and every one, evidently, had been
turned back and buried in the warm wing-coverts.

My stick hit very near the toes of one of the sparrows, and he flew. There
was a twitter, then a stir all over the tree; but nothing further
happening, they tucked in their heads again and went back to bed.

I waited. At four o'clock they still slept. The moon had swung out from
behind the high buildings and now hung just above the slender spire of
Park Street Church, looking down into the deep, narrow street gulch. A cat
picked her way among the graves, sprang noiselessly to the top of a flat
tomb beneath the sparrows, and watched with me. The creature brought the
wilderness with her. After all, this was not so far removed from the
woods. In the empty street, beneath the silent, shuttered walls, with
something still of the mystery of the night winds in the bare trees, the
scene, for an instant, was touched with the spell of the dark and the
untamed.

After a swift warming walk of fifteen minutes I returned to the roost.
There were signs of waking now: a flutter here, a twitter there, then
quiet again, with no general movement until half-past four, when the city
lights were shut off. Then, instantly, from a dozen branches sounded loud,
clear chirps, and every sparrow opened his eyes. The incandescent bulbs
about the border of the roost were moon and stars to them, lights in the
firmament of their heaven to divide the night from the day. When they
blazed forth, it was evening--bedtime; when they went out, it was
morning--the time to wake up.

The softness of dusk, how unknown to these city dwellers! and the fresh
sweet beauty of the dawn!

Morning must have beg