ing, wings for
flying, and all that is needful for you. He has made you the noblest
of his creatures; he permits you to live in the pure air; you have
neither to sow nor to reap, and yet he takes care of you, watches over
you and guides you." Then the birds began to arch their necks, to
spread out their wings, to open their beaks, to look at him, as if to
thank him, while he went up and down in their midst stroking them with
the border of his tunic, sending them away at last with his blessing.'

"'In this same tour, passing through Alviano, he began to preach to
the people, but the swallows so filled the air with their chirping
that he could not make himself heard. "It is my turn to speak," he
said to them; "little swallow sisters, hearken to the word of God;
keep silent and be very quiet until I have finished.'"

"'At Rieti a family of redbreasts were the guests of the monastery,
and the young birds made marauding expeditions on the very table where
the Brothers were eating. Not far from there, at Greccio, at another
time, they brought to Francis a little rabbit that had been taken
alive in a trap. "Come to me, Brother Rabbit," he said to it. And as
the poor creature, being set free, ran to him for refuge, he took it
up, caressed it, and finally put it on the ground that it might run
away; but it returned to him again and again, so that he was obliged
to send it to the neighboring forest before it would consent to return
to freedom.'

{296}

"'One day he was crossing the Lake of Rieti. The boatman in whose bark
he was making the passage offered him a fish of uncommon size. Francis
accepted it with joy, but, to the great amazement of the fisherman,
put it back into the water, bidding it bless God.'

"Here is a story which I once read about a very good and distinguished
man who tells how he learned when he was a boy not to kill even the
smallest animal needlessly.

"'I saw one day a little spotted turtle sunning itself in the shallow
water, and I lifted the stick in my hand to kill it, for, though I had
never killed any creature, I had seen other boys kill birds, squirrels,
and the like, and I had a disposition to follow their wicked example;
but all at once something checked my little arm, and a voice within me
said, clear and loud, "It is wrong," and so I held my uplifted stick
until the turtle vanished from my sight. Then I went home and told my
mother, and asked her what it was that told me it was wrong. She w