ly old zephyr
And a bird is a wonderful thing,
A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
thing."

Two more verses he sang at the top of his lungs, broke off short with a
shrill cry of joy, and took wing.

Then the south-sickness spread, and even the young birds flew to the
tops of trees, and defied gales, snakes, the Statue of Liberty, the boy
with the gun, and the female (you wouldn't call her a woman) with the
untrimmed hat. And away they flew, in ones and twos, until there were
only a few left. One of these hopped on the window-sill in full view,
and told the Poor Boy to get up.

"Don't be setting such an example of sloth," she said, and squeaked at
her own temerity and flew away.

The Poor Boy leaped from bed, and flung his pajamas afar, and rushed for
cold water.

The shower fell heavily with wondrous iciness, and the Poor Boy sang
aloud and praised God, who had once more returned him the gift of seeing
and hearing. At breakfast he told Martha, and with the utmost gravity
repeated to her everything that the birds had said--for _him_.

V

The power of imagining returned to him slowly. There were whole days
when his inner eyes and ears remained obstinately blind and deaf. When a

"Primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more"

(only there were no primroses at this season); when the southing birds
in the ivy outside his window only made noises and were a nuisance; and
when the burden of his thoughts was one long "done for--done for--done
for." It was the affection of many people that he missed most, and the
faith that so many people had had in him--shattered forever. But he
missed their voices, too, and their faces; the cheerful sounds of
"talking at once"; the massing of fresh, lovely gowns, the scintillation
of jewels, the smell of gardenias, the music of violins, hidden by
screens of palms and bay-trees.

What had he done to deserve exile and ostracism? He asked himself that
question thousands of times. He knew, of course, what he was believed to
have done, but he was in search of some committed sin, to account for
his having been punished for one that had only been circumstantially
alleged. And in the whole memory that he had of his life and acts he
could not find an answer. Every life is full of little sins, but of
major ones the Poor Boy had no recollection.

On the days when his imagination was "no