CHAPTER X

THE BLUEBIRD

He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree. The red-flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blossoms; He snaps up destroyers wherever they be. And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms. He drags the vile worm from the corn it devours, The worms from their webs where they riot and welter; His song and his services freely are ours. And all that he asks is, in summer a shelter.

Wilson.

Yesterday the snow melted from the top of the great rocks in the woods; the evergreens shading the rocks lost their white load that had been bearing down the branches for a month; the fences straggled their lean legs wide apart, as if it were summer, only the tips of their toes resting on the surface snow; the north roof of the barn fringed itself with icicles that tumbled down by noon, sticking up at the base of the barn in the drifts head foremost; the top dressing of white powder that for weeks had adorned the woodpiles sifted down through the sticks in a wet scramble for the bottom. All around the farm the buntings had picked the snow off, making the fields look as if brown mats were spread all over the floor. But yesterday the south wind puckered up its lips and blew all over everything in sight, and the brown mats disappeared, or rather, grew into one big one. The cows in the barn-yard look longingly over the fence toward the pasture, and the fowls take a longer walk than they have dared for months, away out in the garden, where lopping brown vines and nude bush stalks bear witness to what they have suffered.

The sun shines across the dooryard as it hasn't shone for so long, making a thin coat of mud just at the edge of the chips and around the doorsteps. But what matters? The children run in and out, tracking up the clean floors, taking their scolding with good cheer. Isn't spring here? and don't they hear the bluebird's note in the orchard?

Run! run! and put up some more little boxes on the shed and the fence-posts. Clean out the last year's nests in the hollow trees. Tell the old cat to "keep mum" and "lie low," or she will be put in a bag and dropped to the bottom of the very first hole in the ice. Cats are all right in the dead of winter, when Old Boreas is frantic in his annual mad fit. She can sit on the rug and purr to her heart's content; but when the bluebirds come, if she bethinks herself of the fact, and sharpens her claws against the trunk of a cherry-tree, she would better look out. When the old cat sharpens her claws she means business, especially if she turns her head in the direction of the orchard. From the orchard comes a soft, agreeable, oft-repeated note, there is a quivering of wings outspread, and "he" is here. There may be only one or two or six singers. They have left the lady bluebirds in a safe place until they are sure of the weather. If the outlook be bad to-morrow, the birds will retire out of sight and wait for another warm spell. But spring is really here, and the good work of the sun goes on. In a day or two the lady birds appear modestly, of paler hue than the males, quiet, but quick and glad of motion.

It is the time of sweethearts. A blue beauty, whose latest coat is none the worse for winter wear, alights near the mate of his choice, sitting on a twig. He goes very near her and whispers in her ear. She listens. He caresses a drooping feather, torn in her wing as she dodged the brush in the journey. She thinks it very kind of him to do so.

Suddenly an early fly appears, traveling zigzag, slowly, somewhere, probably on some family business of its own. Bluebird spies it and makes for it. Not on his own account! Oh, no! He snatches it leisurely and presents it to his love, still sitting on the tree. She thanks him, and wipes her beak on a smaller twig.

So little by little, and by very winning ways, does this gentle blue courtier pay his suit of Miss Bluebird. A chance acquaintance of bluebird sidles up to the same branch on which the two have been sitting. Bluebird courtier likes him not; he will have no rival, and so he drives the intruder away as far as the next tree, returning to his sweet and singing a low warble about something we do not understand. Probably he is giving her to understand that he will "do the right thing" by her all the time, never scolding (as indeed he never does), and looking to the family supplies, and in all things that pertain to faithful affection will prove himself worthy of her. She consents, taking his word for it, and they set about the business of the season.

Now they must hurry or the wrens will come and drive them out of house and home. One of the bluebirds remains in the nesting-place, or very near it; for if the house be empty of inmates, the wrens make quick work of pulling out such straws and nesting material as have been gathered.

If the people of the farm or other home be on the watch they can lend a hand at this time. Offered inducements by way of many boxes or nesting-places, with handfuls of fine litter, will attract the wrens, and the bluebirds will be untroubled. It may be that a cold snap will come up in a driving hurry after the nesting is well under way. In this event the birds will disappear, probably to the deep, warm woods, or the shelter of hollow trees, until the storm be past, when they will come again and take up the work where they left off.

This sudden going and coming on account of the weather has always been a mystery to those who study the bluebirds. Some imagine they have a castle somewhere in the thickest of the woods, where they hide, making meals on insects that love old, damp trees. Caves and rock chambers have been explored in search of the winter bluebirds, but not a bird was found in either place. They keep their own secrets, whether they fly far off to a warmer spot, or whether they hide in cell or castle.

If the work is not anticipated by human friends, and the nesting-places cleaned out in advance of the birds, they will tidy up the boxes themselves, both birds working at it. What do they want of last year's litter with its invisible little mites and things that wait for a genial warmth to hatch out? House-cleaning is a necessity with the bluebirds. When the nest is done it is neat and compact, composed of sticks and straws with a softer lining. The birds accept what is ready to hand, making no long search for material. Being neighbor to man and our habitations, it uses stable litter.

The three to six pale blue eggs contrast but slightly with the mother's breast. The little ones grow in a hurry, for well it is known that more broods must be attended to before summer is over. Sometimes the nest is placed at the bottom of a box or passageway, and the young birds have difficulty in making their way to freedom. The old birds in such a case are said to pile sticks up to the door, and the little ones walk up and out as if on a ladder!

The mother soon takes to preparing for another brood, and the father assumes all the care of the young just out, leading them a short distance from the mother, and teaching them to hunt insects and berries. The little ones are not blue, as any one may see, but brown with speckled breasts. These speckled breasts of young birds are fashionable costumes for many other than bluebirds. They remind one of infantile bibs, to be discarded as soon as the young things eat and behave like their elders.

When the persimmons are ripe in the late fall whole families of bluebirds collect in the trees for the fruit. They love apples as well, but apples are hard unless in early spring after the frost has thawed out of them. So the birds take the persimmons first. It is at this time, when they are flitting from tree to tree, that any person who will take the trouble of hiding underneath and keeping still will catch glimpses of the yellow soles of the bluebird's feet. The legs are dark above the soles. There is a legend about this that is pleasing to know and half-way believed by lovers of legends.

And one need not be ashamed of one's fondness for legends. Legends are as old as the hills, and folk-lore has preserved them. Now that the printer has become the guardian of such things, we expect a legend with every bird and beast, and a life history of either is hardly complete without.

Nearly all the birds of North America are entitled to a legend through the nature-loving Indians, the first inhabitants of our country. They have left little data, but enough has been gleaned from their folk-lore to put us on the trail of many a delightful story. Some of our legends may be of recent date, but all have a fascination of their own. The ancients loved myth and weird, fanciful tales. We are descendants of the ancients, and we love the same things.

Once upon a dreary time a flood of water covered all the earth. The land birds were all huddled together in a little boat, twittering to each other of a "bright to-morrow," as they do to this day. As the storm grew harder the birds grew cold, not having any clothes up to that date. This was the first rain that ever came, and caught many things, of course, unprepared. The birds had been of naked skin, like the lizards, but their beaks had grown, else how could they have been twittering to one another of a bright to-morrow? On this very morrow of song, the boat being far above the mountain-tops, a single ray of sunshine appeared at a crack in the cabin-house. The bluebird always, from the very first, being on the lookout for stray bits of sunshine, sprang to the spot, which was just big enough for his two feet. When the sun went back behind the clouds it was found that the stray bit of it which the bluebird had hopped upon remained on the soles of his feet. That is the way the bluebird came by his yellow soles.

And he came by his blue coat in this wise: When the storm had spent itself the bluebird was the first to go out of the boat, straight toward heaven, singing as he went. When he got to the blue sky he stopped not, but pushed his way straight through, rubbing the tint of the sky right into his uncolored feathers, that had grown in a flash when he left the boat. His mate followed straight through the hole her lord had made, but of course she did not get so much blue as he, the hole being rubbed quite dry of its paint. Ever since the first flight of the bluebird somewhere the sun has shone through the rift he made in the sky and he carries hope of spring in his wake.

The bluebirds are good neighbors, never quarreling nor troubling other birds. In the late fall his note changes to a plaintive one, as if he were mourning for the dear, delightful days of summer-time and nursery joys. It is now that he, with his large family, may be seen on weed stalks in the open country, looking for belated insects and searching for beetles and spiders among the stones.

In darting for winged insects the bluebird does not take a sudden flight, but sways leisurely, as if he would not frighten his treasure by quick movements.

Besides this particular bluebird, so well known all over North America, there are two other members of the family, differing only slightly in coloring and similar in habits. These are the Western and the Arctic bluebirds.

The bluebirds are the morning-glories of our country. They are companions of the violet of spring and the asters in autumn. They belong to the blue sky and the country home and the city suburbs. When the English sparrow is weary of being made into pot-pie and baby-broth, it will go on its way to the North Pole or the Southern Ocean, and our darling in blue will have no enemy in all the land.

When all the gay scenes of the summer are o'er, And autumn slow enters, so silent and sallow, And millions of warblers that charmed us before Have fled in the train of the sun-seeking swallow, The bluebird, forsaken, yet true to his home, Still lingers and looks for a milder to-morrow; Till forced by the horrors of winter to roam, He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow.

Wilson.