A Man and a Woman | Page 5

been his victims; once even a
milk-snake had yielded up the ghost, and once--a great day that--he had
seen a black-snake in the open and had assailed it valorously with
stones hurled from a distance. When it came toward him he retreated,
but did not abandon the bombardment, and finally drove it into a cover
of deep bushes. Come to close quarters with a black-snake he had never
done, for a double reason: firstly, because stones did almost as well as a
club, and, secondly, because his father, fearing for him, had threatened
him with punishment if he essayed such combat, and the firm old rule

of "spare the rod and spoil the child" was adhered to literally by the
father and indorsed by the mother with hesitation. And, growing close
to the house, were slender sprouts of birch and willow, each of which
leaned forward as if to say, "I am just the thing to lick a boy with," and
such a sprout as one of these, especially the willow, does, under proper
conditions, so embrace one's shoulders and curl about one's legs and
make itself familiar. But the feud was on, and as a permanency, though,
on this particular afternoon, the young man, as he stood there in the
doorway, had no thought of snakes. Something else this summer was
attracting much of his attention. He had a family on his hands.

CHAPTER III.
BOY, BIRD AND SNAKE.
The young man's family was not large, but a part of it was young, and
he felt the responsibility. The song-sparrow is the very light and
gladness of the woods and fields. There are rarer singers, and birds of
more brilliant plumage, but he is the constant quantity. His notes may
not rival those mellow, brief ones of the blue-birds in early spring, so
sweet in their quaint inflection, which suggest all hope, and are so
striking because heard while snow may be yet upon the ground; he may
not have the wild abandon of the bobolink with that tinkle and gurgle
and thrill; he is no pretentious songster, like a score of other birds, but
he is a great part of the soul of early summer, for he is telling, morning,
noon and night, how good the world is, how he approves of the
sunshine, and how everything is all right! And so the young man
approved much of the song-sparrow, and was interested in the
movements of all his kind.
One day in May, the boy had noted something in the clump of bushes,
between the house and creek, which very much resembled a small
bird's-nest, and had at once investigated. He found it, the nest of the
song-sparrow, and, when the little gray guardian had fluttered away, he
noted the four tiny eggs, and their mottled beauty. He did not touch
them, for he had been well trained as to what should be the relations

between human beings and all singing birds, but his interest in the
progress of that essay in summer housekeeping became at once
absorbing. He announced in the house that he intended to watch over
the nest all summer, and keep off the hawks, and that when the little
eggs were hatched, and the little birds were grown, maybe he would try
to tame one. He was encouraged in the idea. It is good to teach a boy to
be protective. And when the birds were hatched, his interest deepened.
He was half inclined, as he stood in the doorway on this particular day,
to visit the dense bushes and note the condition of affairs in that
vicinity, but, buoyant as he was, there was something in the outlook
which detained him. There was such a yellow glory to the afternoon,
and so many things were happening.
Balanced above the phlox, a humming-bird, green-backed and
glittering, hung and tasted for a moment, then flashed to where the
larkspurs were. A red-headed woodpecker swung downward on the
wing to the white-brown side of a dead elm, sounded a brief tattoo
upon the surface, then dived at a passing insect. A phoebe bird was
singing somewhere. A red squirrel sat perched squarely on the drooping
limb of a hickory tree and chewed into a plucked nut, so green that the
kernel was not formed, then dropped it to the ground, and announced in
a chatter that he was a person of importance. Great yellow butterflies,
with black markings upon their wings, floated lazily here and there, and
at last settled in a magnificent cluster upon a moist spot in a mucky
place where something pleased their fancy, and where they fed and
fluttered tremulously. There were myriads of wild bees, and a pleasant
droning filled the air, while from all about came the general soft clamor