ds have
such good manners as the wood thrush, and few have so much the manner of
a Paul Pry and eavesdropper as the catbird. The flight of the wood
thrush across the lawn is such a picture of grace and harmony, it is
music to the eye. The catbird seems saying, "There, there! I told you
so, pretty figure, pretty figure you make!" But the courteous thrush
(just here I heard the excited calls of robins and the hoarse, angry caw
of a crow, and rushed out hatless to see a fish crow fly away from the
maple in front of the Study, pursued by a mob of screeching robins. He
took refuge in the spruces above the house where the collected robins
abused him from surrounding branches. On my appearance he flew away, and
the robins dispersed)--but the courteous thrush, I say, invites the
good-breeding in you which he himself shows. The thrush never has the
air of a culprit, while the catbird seldom has any other air. But I
welcome them both. One shall stand for the harmony and repose of bird
life, and the other for its restlessness and curiosity. The songs and
the manners of birds correspond. The catbird, the brown thrasher, and
the mockingbird are all theatrical in their manners--full of gestures of
tail and wings, and their songs all imply an audience, while the serene
melody of the thrushes is in keeping with the grace and poise of their
behavior.

V

A MIDSUMMER IDYL

As I sit here of a midsummer day, in front of the wide-open doors of a
big hay-barn, busy with my pen, and look out upon broad meadows where my
farmer neighbor is busy with his haymaking, I idly contrast his harvest
with mine. I have to admit that he succeeds with his better than I do
with mine, though he can make hay only while the sun shines, while I can
reap and cure my light fancies nearly as well in the shade as in the
sun. Yet his crop is the surer and of more certain value to mankind. But
I have this advantage over him--I might make literature out of his
haymaking, or might reap his fields after him, and gather a harvest he
never dreamed of. What does Emerson say?

One harvest from the field
Homeward bring the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.

But the poet, like the farmer, can reap only where he has sown, and if
Emerson had not scattered his own heart in the fields his Muse would not
reap much there. Song is not one of the instruments with which I gather
my harvest, but long ago, as a farm boy,