ng in company with some noted statesmen, busily engaged in
conversation. But he was not too much occupied to notice that a young
bird had fallen from its nest near the path where they were walking.
He stopped short and crossing over to where the bird was lying,
tenderly picked it up and put it back into its nest. There was a
gentleman of a noble nature! No wonder that man was a leader and a
liberator!"

"Who was he?"

"The grand, the great Abraham Lincoln," responded the professor
impressively.

"Well, he'd be the very one to do just such a kind deed as that," was
the colonel's hearty response. "No man ever lived who had a bigger,
more merciful heart than 'Honest Abe.'"

For myself I did not know who Abraham Lincoln was. I had never heard
the name before, but I was quite sure from the proud tone of the
professor's voice that he was a distinguished man, as I was equally
sure from the story of his pity for the helpless bird, that he was a
good man.

"You mentioned the industry of the grakle a moment ago," resumed the
professor. "Do you know that the redwing is equally as useful, and
besides he is a delightful singer?

"The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee.

"Do you remember that line, colonel?" and the professor softly whistled
a strain in imitation of a bird's note. "The services of our little
brothers of the air are exceedingly valuable to the horticulturist.
And think of the damage done to arboriculture by the woodborers alone
were it not for the help given by the birds. Did you ever notice those
borers at work, colonel? Some writer has well described them as
animated gimlets. They just stick their pointed heads into the bark
and turn their bodies around and around and out pours a little stream
of sawdust. The birds would pick off such pests fast enough if people
would only give them a chance and not scare them off with shotguns."

"Yes, the birds earn their way, there is no denying it, and he is a
very stupid farmer who begrudges them the little corn and wheat they
take from the fields. The account is more than balanced by the good
they do." Then the conversation ceased, for the colonel and his friend
moved off to inspect the quince bushes.

Pleased by the praises they had bestowed on us for our efforts in
cleaning the fruit trees and cornfields of injurious insects, I went to
work with new vigor to get out some bugs for my luncheon, and was thus
pleasantly employed when a sharp twitter from my m