ful onion should be upon
the midsummer air! But listen. No Assyrian ever yet came down upon
the fold as my neighbor's chickens have descended upon the fair
territory of my garden. As for shooing a chicken off, my dear, when
its gigantic intellect is set upon scratching up a seeded bed, you
might as well attempt to wave back a thunderstorm with a fan.

I have undertaken several difficult things in my life, but never one so
hopeless as convincing a calm and resolute hen that she is an intruder.
I spent one glad summer trying to keep a brood out of a geranium bed,
and had typhoid fever all the fall just from overwork and worry. But
say there had been no chickens to "wear the heart and waste the body,"
how about potato bugs, and caterpillars and huge and gruesome slugs? I
never go out to sprinkle the sad pea vines or pick the drooping lettuce
but what I resolve myself into a magnet to lure the early
vegetable-devouring reptile from its lair. Large 7 by 9 caterpillars
and zebra-striped ladybugs disport themselves on neck and ankle until I
flee the scene.

XXXVIII.

ANYTHING WORSE THAN A BLUE-JAY? HARDLY!

If there is anything worse than a blue-jay, name it. Perhaps a mannish
woman, with a shrill voice and a waspish tongue, is as bad, but she
can't be worse. There are something less than a hundred of these
feathered hornets dwelling in the grove that surrounds my house, and
they began before sunrise to call names and fight clamorous battles.
One of them starts the row by crying something in the ear of a
neighbor, which sounds like a challenge blown through a fish horn. At
this the insulted neighbor flops down off the tree where he lives, and
says naughty words very thick and very fast. Then five or six old
ladies poke their heads over the sides of their nests and call
"Police!" A squad of bluecoats comes tearing ever the border and
attacks the original culprit. He whips out his fish horn and summons a
general uprising. Very soon there is a battle royal, to which the old
ladies add zest by squeaking out dire threats in shrill falsetto voices
pitched at high "C." This keeps up until somebody arises and declaims
from my open window, dancing meanwhile in helpless rage, to see how
futile is the voice of august man when blue-jays hold the floor. Talk
about the English sparrow! It is a mild-mannered little gentleman
compared to the noisy jay. Its politeness and amiability are
Chesterfieldan beside the be