Part 16

“Soft of plumage, gentle, and almost sad of voice is the Mourning Dove, the grayish brown bird with metallic lustres, whose name is taken from its plaintive accents. Its comings and goings are silent, and, in spite of its size, for it is as large as the Meadowlark, if it was not for its cooing, heard early in the morning, we should seldom know of its presence, for its flight is noiseless, and it chooses trees in secluded places for the little loose bunch of sticks that forms its nest.

“Formerly, this Dove, together with its cousin, the Passenger Pigeon, were everywhere to be found, while the Passenger Pigeon, a bird of fine flesh, was so plentiful as to be almost a staple article of food, and wagons loaded with birds were peddled through city streets. With the wastefulness of a people coming to a new and liberal country, the birds were often shot down in their roosts, from pure wantonness, and left to decay upon the ground, so that now the Passenger Pigeon and the wild buffalo have gone to the happy animal-country, where there is no hunting, together,—two valuable animals practically extinct,—and North America is the poorer for its thoughtlessness.

“With this warning before us, the Kind Hearts’, of which there are plenty everywhere, whether they are banded into clubs or not, should strive to have this gentle, harmless life protected.

“‘Why?’ says the farmer, in the states that refuse protection. ‘Maybe it doesn’t do any harm, but what good can it do that can make up to me for not eating it?’ To such a man say this: The Mourning Dove is a consumer of evil weeds, and its presence in flocks will lessen his labour and give his hoe arm a rest; that the crop of a dove, examined by the Department of Agriculture in Washington, was found to hold 9200 seeds of noxious weeds! _Not to have these weeds grow_ would give the farmer, or his boy, time for a half holiday, wherein to go clamming or berry picking!

* * * * *

“Now we have some little birds whose names are still on the list of food- or game-birds, and I should like to see them wiped from it forever, or, at least, until they are once more plentiful in their haunts. These are the two cousins of the Woodcock,—Sandpipers, the Spotted and the Least, and two Plovers, also water-loving birds, the Killdeer and the Upland Plover.

“Most of you children, at some part of the season, go down to the shore of the bay yonder, perhaps it may be when your fathers gather seaweed in the spring and fall, in late summer for the snapper fishing, or all through the autumn and early winter for long-necked clams. Some of you, I know, like Tommy and Dave, have camped out there for several weeks. Have you not noticed the little prints of birds’ feet just above the edge of tide-water? Or have you not seen the little birds themselves, no bigger than Sparrows, with streaked, brown-gray backs and soft white feathers underneath, running to and fro, balancing when they feed, as if making a courtesy, all the while whispering softly among themselves?

“Or, again, others slightly larger, with ash and brown backs, and underparts spotted with round, black marks like a thrush, white spotted wings, and the outer tail-feathers white barred, showing in flight?

“These two gracious, confiding little birds are the Least and the Spotted Sandpiper. Their small size should keep them off the food list, for what are their dead bodies but a single mouthful? And what are they alive? Things of joy and mystery combined. For what is a more perfect picture of grace and happiness than these birds with a background of sand, seaweed, and shells, and all the sparkling water before?

“Of a gray day, their pleasant prattle is shut down by the fog, and sounds strange and mysterious, and when they spread their pointed wings, and vanish into the mist, that seems to pick them up as it rolls in, the picture is complete.

“The Least Sandpiper, the smallest of his tribe, is found in greater numbers on our beach than the Spotted. He comes to us in the migrations, as he nests only in the far North. I can remember, when as a girl I was fond of swiming in the bay until late in autumn, that a flock of these little birds flew over me so close that I could feel the beating of their wings. His use is to give interest to the landscape, and his plea for life his harmless littleness, his confidence, and his obedience in filling the place in nature which the great Plan has given him. Perhaps you may have heard the poem that he inspired in the heart of one woman, who lived on a sea-girt island, and, oftentimes, had only the birds for company; even if you have heard it, the verses are among those of which we never tire.

THE SANDPIPER

Across the narrow beach we flit, One little Sandpiper and I; And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit,— One little Sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— One little Sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong; He scans me with a fearless eye. Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little Sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night, When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky; For are we not God’s children both, Thou, little Sandpiper, and I?

—Celia Thaxter.

“The spotted Sandpiper, in my girlhood, was here, with us, a familiar bird of moist meadows and pond edges, and every season I used to see them stepping about the stones in the little brook that flows through the river woods, across the meadow above the orchard. They frequently nested there, also, and I have often seen the buff, chocolate, spotted eggs. I have seen the birds wading in the stream quite up to their bodies, sometimes dragging their legs after them as children do in play; they can also swim, when they wish to cross a stream without taking to wing, and it is said, when hard pressed or wounded, can dive deep and swim, or rather, fly under water very swiftly, for they use the wings as the Loon does. Teeter and Tip-up are two of its common names, because it seems to be always balancing in order not to tumble over. If you startle it, it gives a frightened cry like ‘peet-weet-weet,’ as it rises, but soon drops again.

“This bird has a list of good deeds as an insect eater to plead for its removal from the list of game-birds. Birds consume the most insects in the nesting season when the quick-growing young require constant feeding, and, as it breeds all over North America as far as Hudson Bay, you can see that the Spotted Sandpiper’s field of usefulness is very wide, and wherever he goes, following the sun as he does throughout the seasons, his value, aside from his dainty beauty, does not lie in the morsel of food he would make for those short sighted enough to shoot him, but in the insects of all sorts, including grasshoppers and locusts, he kills in the simple process of getting a living.

“Another bird of the moist meadows of rivers and salt creeks is the Killdeer or Little Ring-necked Plover. It is about the size of the Spotted Sandpiper, equally beautiful, and with a certain dignity all its own. We always used to have them in the river meadows, but, since my return this year, I have not seen a single one.

“I have found the curious, creamy, pear-shaped eggs, with brown spots, in a grassy hollow, with no other bed than the turf itself. Strange eggs they are, seemingly so much too large for their owners, and an apparently careless arrangement to leave them with no protecting nest. But the shape of the egg prevents accident, for, if disturbed, they simply turn round and round on the pointed end, but do not roll away.

Order—Limicolæ Family—Charadriidæ Genus—Ægialitis Species—Vocifera

“The young chicks are the prettiest little creatures; even when first hatched, they are well covered with down, and have strong, useful legs, with which they can follow their parents all day long until their pinions have developed to let them fly. It is a peculiarity of the game-bird that, like our domestic poultry, the chick comes from the egg open-eyed, well covered, and able, in a measure, to care for itself from the moment that it is hatched. The song-birds, birds of prey, and others are hatched blind and naked, and require several weeks’ time before they are fit for independent life.

“No prettier scene of young bird-life can be drawn than that of Mother Killdeer, walking through the dewy meadows, with stately gait, followed by her four chicks, now brooding them with a warning cry, if the shadow of a hawk appears; now turning over leaves and bits of dead wood in search of their insect food. When danger is near, the young squat, and the blending of their colours with those of the ground gives them the benefit of what is known as ‘colour protection,’ a wise plan of Heart of Nature for the benefit of the weaker species. If threatened danger does not pass by, then the old birds become aggressive, and sometimes fly at the intruder, be he man or animal. The peculiar call of the bird, ‘Killdee-Killde-e-e-Killdeer,’ has given it its name, though it has several other cries when brooding and protecting its young.

“The desire to protect this charming bird, that the National Association of the Audubon Societies is endeavouring to have made a law, state by state, is, after all, nothing new. Listen to what Audubon himself wrote about the Killdeer, beginning with the nesting time: ‘At this period the parents, who sit alternately on the eggs, never leaving them to the heat of the sun, are extremely clamorous at the sight of an enemy. The female droops her wings, emits her plaintive notes, and endeavours, by every means she can devise, to draw you from her nest or young. The male dashes over you in the air and vociferates all the remonstrances of an angry parent whose family is endangered. If you cannot find pity for the poor birds at such a time, you may take up their eggs and see their distress, but if you be at all so tender hearted as I would wish you to be, it will be quite unnecessary for me to recommend mercy.’

“So, children of the Kind Hearts’ Club, ask all those you meet to help put the little Killdeer upon the protected list; say that it is too small to be counted as food, and, in addition, whisper to every farmer you meet (and farmers north, south, east, and west should be interested, for the bird inhabits the whole of temperate North America), ‘The Killdeer is an insect eater, taking grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, boll weevils, and the dreaded Rocky Mountain locust.’ If this is not enough, add that the Kind Hearts wish to protect all these gentle little birds, that are out of place on the list of food-birds, and we all know that when a kind heart _wishes_ to do a thing, it usually finds the way!”

“Somebody told Dad at the last Farmers’ Institute that the Reed birds, that the big boys go gunning for down in the marsh meadows along in August, are changed Bobolinks,” said Tommy, “and that we mustn’t shoot them any more, because Bobolinks are singing-birds, and I just guess they are. My! can’t they sing, and fly right up at the same time, as if going so fast shook the song out of them, and they couldn’t help it!”

Gray Lady laughed at Tommy’s description, which was certainly very true, and expressed in vigorous boy language.

“Yes, Tommy, the black-white-and-buff Bobolink of May, after the midsummer moult, becomes a dull, brown-striped bird like his wife, and, shedding his lovely voice and glowing feathers together, he keeps only a call note. In this masquerade he leads a double, and somewhat vagabond, life, travelling by slow degrees toward his winter home and then back again in the spring, all the while eating many things which the owners do not wish him to have, one being rice,—rice in the ear and the sprouting rice in spring.

“Let others do as they must, but we, who have no rice to be hurt, insist that this bit of ardent, flying melody shall receive the treatment that his music deserves, and be taken forever off the list of semigame-birds. What if this singer of the opera does choose to don a sober travelling cloak and journey silently? The musician is only waiting for the pink blossoms to come on the apple trees, and the grass to grow long enough to sway to the wind, to again let his music float from the one and give his nest to the care of the other, where no human eye, at least, may spy it. If we destroy Robert of Lincoln, called Bobolink for short, we kill not one but many qualities and songs. Did you never hear the rhyme of his merry family?”

THE O’LINCOLN FAMILY

A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in a grove; Some were warbling cheerily and some were making love. There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,— A livelier set were never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle:— Crying “Whew, shew, Wadolincon; see, see, Bobolincon Down among the tickle tops, hiding in the buttercups; I know the saucy chap; I see his shining cap Bobbing there in the clover,—see, see, see!”

Up flies Bobolincon perching on an apple tree; Startled by his rival’s song, quickened by his raillery. Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air, And merrily he turns about and warns him to beware! “’Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! Wait a week, till flowers are cheery; wait a week ere you marry, Be sure of a house wherein to tarry; Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!”

Every one’s a funny fellow; every one’s a little mellow; Follow, follow, follow, follow, o’er the hill and in the hollow. Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; They cross and turn, and in and out, down the middle, and wheel about, With a “Phew, shew, Wadolincon; listen to me, Bobolincon! Happy’s the wooing that’s speedily doing, that’s speedily doing, That’s merry and over with the bloom of the clover; Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!”

O what a happy life they lead, over hill and in the mead! How they sing and how they play! See, that fly away, away! Now they gambol o’er the clearing—off again, and then appearing; Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar and now they sing, “We must all be merry and moving, we all must be happy and loving; For when the midsummer has come and the grain has ripened its ear, The haymakers scatter our young and we mourn for the rest of the year; Then, Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste away!”

—Wilson Flagg, in _Birds and Seasons in New England_.

XVI TREASURE-TROVE AT THE SHORE

_The Herring or Harbour Gull_

The autumn had been clear and fine, and the hillside farmers of Fair Meadows township had their out-of-door work well in hand by Thanksgiving. The fall-sown rye was well up, and the fields that were to lie fallow and be sweetened by the frost were ploughed and in good shape. Ice-cutting, on the chain of large ponds that lay in the valley between the hills north of the river woods, was an important industry of the region, so that every one was anxious to have the ice form clear and firm before snowfall. As yet, however, there had been no signs of either, except the thin ice with which Black Frost always covers the roof, gutters, water-pails, and shallow pools when he prowls round in the early morning, as if merely to let the good folks know of his presence, and to prepare them for his gentler mediating brother, Snow.

The day after Thanksgiving the wind began to blow, not in mere passing gusts, but steadily and systematically. Then, too, it came from a strange quarter for that season—the extreme southeast. This was the wind to drive the sea into the bay and force the water high on shore. Such winds, at this season, piled the elastic brown seaweed in long lines high above tide-water, and many a farmer, and market-gardener, as he ate his supper, laid plans to drive down to the beach next morning, with a double team, and secure a full load of the weed for covering his strawberry or asparagus beds.

Before morning, however, a driving rain set in that lasted for two days and kept everybody house-bound. The roadways ran water like rivers, and, by the time the storm lessened at sunset Sunday evening, there was barely a leaf left on the apple trees of the Birdland orchard, and Goldilocks was well-nigh heartbroken over the state of the lunch-counter, for, in spite of the protecting roof, the broken biscuits turned to paste, the suet hung in rags, and as for the kernels of cracked corn and the buckwheat, they had swelled as if they thought it was a spring rain and it was their duty to grow. So that Goldilocks was worried lest some Juncos and Goldfinches that made a hearty meal upon the grains, in spite of the rain, should suffer from a fit of indigestion.

Early Monday morning, when he returned to milk, the hired man at Tommy Todd’s, who had been spending the night with his brother at one of the little huts four miles below on the shore road, brought word that the great storm had, as he expressed it, “heaved” the deep-water oyster-beds that extended out through the bay and that in addition to the seaweed, the beach was completely covered with fine large oysters, bushels and bushels of them.

How the news spread, nobody knew, but by half-past eight every available team within a mile of Foxes Corners school was “hooked up” and entire families were hurrying toward the beach in every sort of vehicle, to gather up this unexpected treasure-trove of the sea.

The parents seemed to have entirely forgotten that school began at nine, and it was not to be expected that the children should remind them. And, truth be told, when Jared Barnes gathered his flock, grandma included, into the hay wagon, Sarah and Ruth, conscientious as they usually were about their lessons, entirely forgot the day of the week, so eager were they for the fray; for the prospect, not only of oysters to roast and stew, but of oysters to pickle and keep, was too great a temptation to resist.

Miss Wilde, who arrived at the schoolhouse rather earlier than usual, found the door locked, and no fire in the stove. It was Dave’s week to tend the fire, and, as Miss Wilde stood in the open doorway pondering on the matter, one of the most exacting of the school committee men came bumping along in a lumber cart. Pulling up his horses so suddenly that a neighbour who was with him tipped backward off the seat, he called to the astonished teacher: “You had best close up and go home; you won’t have any pupils to-day. Or else come down, and hold school on the shore! The rest of the committee will probably meet together in a few minutes, and we’ll vote to extend Thanksgiving holidays over to-day.” So saying, he cracked his whip and rattled downhill, leaving Miss Wilde to wonder if he was losing his mind, or the world was turning topsyturvy, or if she was still asleep, for it was beginning to be hard to wake up as the mornings shortened.

Miss Wilde locked the door and started to walk toward Eliza Clausen’s house, that being the nearest place where she could possibly find out what was happening. As she reached the cross-road that met the turnpike a little above the school, she heard the sharp trot of hoofs, and, turning in that direction, saw Jacob Hughes driving the depot rockaway, Goldilocks being beside him and Gray Lady seated behind. Goldilocks waved her hand on seeing Miss Wilde, and in another minute “teacher” was seated beside Gray Lady, and not only knew of the avalanche of oysters, but was herself on the way to the shore with her friends, who were going, not for the sake of the oysters, but to enjoy what was sure to be a picturesque scene, with the shell-strewn beach, the sharp bluff on the left, and the long sand-bar, with its lighthouse on the right, for a setting. Nor were they disappointed.

For once tell-tale news did not exaggerate, and, though there were many cut and scratched fingers from the sharp shells, before noon there was no one who had not gathered all the oysters he could carry. The more thrifty among the men also began to gather the seaweed into heaps safe from the incoming tide, so that they might be sure of finding it the next day, while the women and children gathered driftwood and, making fireplaces of a few stones, heated the coffee they had brought. For, though the sun was now shining clear, and the wind had dropped to a little breeze that scarcely moved the surface of the tide pools, there was a growing keenness in the air that named the month “December,” and promised the wind would be in the northwest by night.

In spite of the unusual human picture before them, that which interested Gray Lady, Miss Wilde, and Goldilocks the most were the Gulls that covered the bare sand-bar, waded in the shallow pools, and clambered among the stones in search of food, which they picked out with their stout, hooked bills, then flew swiftly overhead toward the creek, across the salt meadows, with a shrill cry, such as the creaking windlass of a well gives when the rope plays out quickly and the bucket drops—“quake-wake-wake.”

Further out, in the arm of the bar, where there was no current, and the water was deep and smooth, many Gulls were resting motionless as white skiffs at anchor, or flying and diving for food in the wake of some boats that were evidently grappling to discover the extent of the damage to the oyster-beds.

“How many kinds of Gulls are there?” asked Goldilocks. “Three, I should think, unless the males and the females were different.”

“The Gulls here are all Herring, or, as the Wise Men now wish them called, ‘Harbour Gulls.’ The old birds have the pure white breasts and pearly gray, or what is sometimes called ‘Gull-blue,’ upper parts and the black-and-white wing-markings. The mixed and streaked ash, buff, and brown birds are the young of the year, while the black-and-white patched birds are not Gulls, but Old Squaw Ducks. These have spent the winter about the bay and bar ever since I can remember, and, strangely enough, both Gulls and Ducks seem to be no less in number than they were twenty years ago. That is probably because the Gulls are protected, and the Ducks’ flesh is so tough that even a hungry dog could hardly tear it apart. I hope your children are noticing these birds while they are gathering driftwood for the fires,” Gray Lady said to Miss Wilde. “It is very seldom that they come to the shore as late as this, or see the Gulls in such numbers. It seems to-day as though the storm must have driven all that belong to many miles of coast to take shelter in this bay.”

“Yes, they are looking,” said Goldilocks, “for Sarah and Tommy and Dave and Clary, who are all together by the nearest fire, are watching and pointing to the Gulls that are over by the boats, and I think that Bobby has found a dead Gull tangled in seaweed and he is showing it to the others.”