CHAPTER XVII.

_Birds as Missionary Messengers._

Since 1915 I have more than doubled the interest of my bird-tracing system by stamping a selected verse of Scripture on what previously was the blank side of the tag. Now whoever is lucky enough to get a bird with my tag on it also gets a personal verse of Scripture, whether he needs it or not. Safety first! No harm done. I said “personal,” but of course there are exceptions. In case you are bald-headed and when out shooting you bring down a good fat goose wearing a tag, and on investigation you find that the message reads: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matthew 10:30,” if you don’t think this goose was intended for you just place the tag back on its leg and hand it to the other fellow.

However, I do not feel that I should pass on without first giving you an explanation of how this great advantage was handed to me.

One Saturday afternoon in the fall of 1914 I was standing in a shoe store in the town of Kingsville, conversing with two gentlemen, when a plainly dressed Salvation Army lassie approached us and holding out a small roll remarked, “Buy a calendar, gentlemen; buy a calendar?” I happened to be the last one to refuse, but as I shook my head I glanced at the situation. We three men all wearing good warm overcoats, and this girl, dressed in what I would call a summer suit. I spoke just as she was turning away. She at once whirled, her face beaming with smiles as she held out the paper roll towards me, while I dropped a quarter in her other extended hand and carelessly pushed what she had sold me down into my outside overcoat pocket. I have never seen her since to my knowledge.

A few days later I noticed a beautiful picture hanging on our dining-room wall; its outer cover appealed to me very much, so I got up and walked to it and began asking a volume of questions, Where did you get that? Who brought it here? Where did it come from? and so forth. Mrs. Miner turned and said, “Why you brought it home. We found it in your overcoat pocket.”

By this time I had lifted the outer cover and found it contained a selected verse for me to consider each day in the year. This was the first one I read: “From this day I will bless you.”

I then studied one after another of them until I had read and reread dozens and dozens of these encouraging promises that seemed to fill the whole room with heavenly bread right from God’s own oven of love.

The overflow of my heart was: How can I pass it on? I decided to select a few of these verses that had hit me square in my living room, and have them put in booklet form, then pass them on to friends as my Christmas greetings.

That week we were burning our last kiln of drain-tile for the season. It had been our custom that I start work at one o’clock, a.m., my eldest son taking the first part of the night. I am on duty, firing, every half hour, which takes me from ten to fifteen minutes; then I withdraw from the heat and roar of the fires, and lean back in our old chair with my feet upon a wheel-barrow. The clock is hung where the glare of the light will shine on its face and I take things quite comfortable for fifteen minutes at a time. I pull the blanket up over my shoulders and lie right back.

It is a beautiful warm morning for the time of the year; in fact the park pond is not frozen over, and the ducks and geese are still here. The silence is broken now and then by the crowing of the roosters, which is Nature’s introduction to the new day. The sky above my face looks bluish-black, illuminated with thousands of twinkling stars, and each is staring me right in the eyes. There I am—_alone_. I pick out a space between four bright stars and try to count the dimmer ones in that small area, until the whole heavens seem to burst open with wireless messages, and my heart is the central station.

I have said I am alone. Yes, I am alone in company with Him who has been the foundation of all my success; alone with Him who, time and again while in the northern wilderness, has heard my earnest, awkwardly-worded request and has guided me to my lost companions when my strength and ability had failed; yes, when the night has been as black as ink, and the stormy gale was causing the trees to fall all around us, He has guided me safely back to our tent that is pitched in the second-growth timber beside some little stream or lake. Yes, I am alone with the same great, loving Power who has made millions of bare-foot boys into real men, even after fathers’ and mothers’ kind teachings had failed.

Just then I heard the swish of a flock of ducks’ wings and their low quacking as they dropped into the pond about two hundred feet away. At that moment one corner of my mind’s eye had apparently drifted over to the three hundred and sixty-five blessings I had bought of the Salvation Army lassie for twenty-five cents, and like a star shooting across the heavens God’s radio said: “Stamp these verses on what is now the blank side of your duck and goose tags.”

I threw the blanket off my shoulders and jumped to my feet, for I now had my tagging system completed!

In less than a week I had the fowls of the air carrying the word of God, and in six months they were delivering it from the sunny side of the Atlantic to the far-off Indians and Esquimaux of Hudson Bay. And to-day I do not hesitate in saying that I have the most accurate and most fascinating bird-tagging system of any man, or combination of men, standing on the American continent, as the verse of Scripture has more than doubled the interest.

This brought Rev. J. W. Walton to my home, here. Mr. Walton has been an Anglican missionary on the east coast of Hudson Bay for over thirty years. And when he and I grasped hands in my door-yard we were compelled to believe that we were introduced by the fowls of the air, for his letter of introduction was several goose-tags which I had sent out in previous years. The geese were killed by the Esquimaux, who took the tags to the reverend gentleman for an interpretation.

This system also brought to me another letter from the far North, which is of unusual interest. It reads as follows:

“I have to admit that I have delayed the sending of this tag to you, longer than I should. Hope I have caused you no inconvenience.

“The passage of Scripture on this tag is one which had I fully realized God’s power, and the full extent of its meaning in the past, how often would I have said ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ and would have come out of it ‘more than conqueror;’ but, sorry to say, in most cases the opposite has been the result. Rest assured your message has done some good.”

One duck, killed in Louisiana, brought to my home thirty-nine interesting letters of inquiry. Among them was a letter from the Arkansas State Prison, reading as follows:

“My name is ——. My room-mate’s name is ——. I am in here for overdraft on a bank; my room-mate, who is sitting at my elbow, is in here for murder. We have a paper here giving an account of a duck killed in Louisiana with a tag on its leg marked ‘Have faith in God.’ We have looked this up in our Bible; we find that the reference given is correct. We would be pleased to hear from you, to know more about your interesting life with the birds. However, if you do not see fit to write us, we trust you will not be offended at getting a letter from here. We remain,

“Yours, _________________ Arkansas State Prison”

Little did I think when I stamped this verse on the tag that the duck carried away, that the message would ever find its way into a prison cell, and lodge in the heart of a murderer.