Aiken in the
holly-tree that stood by the old lady's window. There were comparisons
of resorts and disputes about them.

In the party were young birds who had never been south at all. And a
certain old bachelor bird amused himself very heartily at the expense of
these. He did not dwell upon the beauty of the journey that was before
them, but upon its inconveniences, its dangers, and its horrors.

"The midland route would be all right," he said, "if it weren't for the
farmers' boys with their long guns and the--ever see a cat, Bub?"

"No," twittered Bub nervously. "Don't expect to. _I'm_ for the
seaboard."

"That would be sense," said the old bachelor, "if it weren't for the
Statue of Liberty."

"The what?"

"It's a big light--you never know just what it is, because when you fly
into it to see, it breaks your neck and all the other worthless bones in
your body."

"I'm not agoing to fly into any light."

"You _think_ you won't," said the bachelor ominously. "But first your
brains will scatter figuratively, and then--literally. Too bad!--too
bad!"

All the young birds shuddered.

"Those big snakes in the South are rather nasty things, too," continued
the bachelor bird. "I'm used to them, of course, and I've proved dozens
of times that there's no such thing as hypnotism; but the effect of a
snake's eye on very young and inexperienced birds is inconceivable, and
not to be reconciled to the Darwinian theory or Mendel's law. What
between snakes, hawks, and women's hats, the life of a bird--"

"Isn't what it used to be."

The bachelor turned upon his interrupter and scowled.

"On the contrary," he said, "it's _exactly_ what it used to be. And
that's the--ahem--of it! Pardon me, ladies."

"When do you start?" he was asked.

"Not for a week," he answered pompously. "I have several little odds and
ends to look into first--" And right in the midst of his speech the call
of the South hit him in the middle, you may say. It always does hit a
bird like that, and it is contagious like girls fainting in a factory.

The cynical bachelor flew suddenly to the tipmost top of a tree, and
poured forth the whole of his heart and soul in a song of the South.
"I've got to go--I've got to go," he sang:

"For it's there that I must be,
Where the flower of the pomegranate blazes
In the top of the pomegranate tree.

"And as for the dangers of travel,
I'd laugh--if I hadn't to sing.
For a gale is a sil