The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-03-30
Peculiar and Delightful Accom-
plistment Of a Pretty Girl
From Michigan.
Her Medley Includes The Phlegm-
attic DUCK and the
Giddy Skylark.
Can't Whistle and Never Held C~onvers.
With Birds-Hew Her Wonderful
Gift Was Developed.

AAoAV~y. M"#T# - "yeE..@%M se -8- ~
II seems rather d pity To have to be physi-
poetry of forest and meadow as she gives
us and to mix it up with thoraSes and
bronchial tubes and other dissectinR room
gayeties. But when you see a yonng girl
open one corner of a small and decidedly
pretty mouth and calmly let loose a whole
flock of the sweetest song birds known, IL
is a very natural thing. after the FIRST shook
of surprise is over, to ask how on earth she
does it, says the New York World.
At least it is natural IN this practical, IN
outing age. Very likely if there were just
now any striking instances of athlctlon
with the disease We would have learned
scientists collaring the microbes OF the
Shakespearian poetic frenzy and vacclnst-
ING people with them, and = very Whele-
some thing it would be if it tended to mod
ify a few Of the pangs the public now
then suffers from some Of the modern
magazine bards.
But that has no more to do with Miss
Stephenson than Mas Mabel Stephenson
has to do with the opera boutfe called
.'Uncle Cslestin," into the first act OF
which she suddenly bursts with her sweet
turmoil Of bird music without any partlc-
ular rhyme or reason, but as a very pleas
ant relief from the crazy horse-play Of the
piece.
II is really very remarkable what this
modest and gentle-faced young girl DOES.
She is such a very quiet and unobtruslve
Young person at first sight that the sur
prise when she gives you the hrst intima-
ton of her gifts is all the greater. You
know when she appears that she has moth
inRt to do with the delirious rubbish that 10
happening on the stage, but that she Is
about to do something you are sure, OF
course, or she wouldn't be there. When in
her very altless way she begins her little
recitation, about birds, and then suddenly
breaks into it, and from that moment goes
wavering and winding all through II that
marvellous linked chain of all tho liquid
bird melody Of an entire forest and meadow
bird orchestra. the effect is quite startling.
Shut your eyes and you are no longer in
the frowzy atmosphere of q theater i'll the
blizzard month of March. 1t is an early
morning in June and you are out in the
woods somewhere. There are no electric
lights and gas jets; it is blazing summer
sunlight. It is the oder of the forest, not
Of the footlights, that comea to you. Ger
tainly il is a very Astounding thing to be
done lust by the loossning and contracting
of vocal chords with the valuable aid Of
bronchial tubes and a thoysx.
Miss STEPHENSON says, and after hearing
her you are quite prepared to believe it,
chat she can initiate any bird that wears
wings and feathers. and as wings and
feathers are part of the anatomical equip
ment of all birds, it amounts to saying that
she can initiate them all. She can give the
iudieious and non-friyolous "quaek, quaek"
Of the conservative and ssrious-minded
cJ,,o1, sc ecnr,ruta1v aR ShA ran l}OItatA tho
piddv. soaring song of the vanishing sky
lark. 1t was a very early acquisition with
her. She took to talking bird lingo almost
as soon as she took to talking the sound
commercial English of Michigan. where
she was bOrns
She is a true American girl, Miss Stephen
son. and she has mingled In the very best
American bird society. Her repertoire il
almost exclusively that of our own sweet
singing American birds. She was in Eng
land recently and picked mp the songs of
the thrush, nightingale and skylark, just to
show these stars Of English bird opera that
their songs were easy enough, and that
anybody who had had q course in an Amer
lean bird music conservatory could do
them. But it is the whip-poor-will, the
yellow-breast, the chickadee, the redbird,
the catbird. the m~eadow-lark, the swallow,
the bobolink and, of course. the robin with
the red waistcoat-these are the birds, good
Americans all, whose songs sheloveB bsst to
sing.
Then she can give to perfection the
ward, melancholy cry of the loon and can
pipe so like the quail that you have only to
shut your eyes and fancy that yeu are out
in the brown stubble of the fields. Neither
the domestic gooss nor the grave and rev
erend owl can be clasead exactly among tbs
merry warLling songstnrs of the fsathered
kind, but they each have a method OF ex-
pressing disapproyal similar to that fire.
r,ortl. p5Dr%aJ NV aTjjapcao hafnra urh,ab
such pieces as "Unola Cslestin'' are pro-
duced, and this, too Miss Stephenson can
initiate to perfection.
Whether birds sing just because they are
happy on general principles, or whether
Shey sing as mortals whistle, for want OF
thought, become interesting questions in
view of Miss Stephenson's gifts. If their
songs are not songs but observations made
in the line of conversation, then we are get
ting into the field occupied by the man who
has made monkey language Il study and
who proposes to shut himself up in a cage
in the wilds of Africa and take n university
course of monk dialect under the ~instruo-
ton of the most able gorilla and ourang-
outang professors. If this man can tall
monkey then surely Misc Stephenson car
talk the more melodlous and graceful Ian
gus9e of the birds.
to her and says she never has taken part il
any bird gossip. and never, indeed, triad tc
talk to birds, although they very rsadil,
anGwe her imitation of bird cries. 1t wa
simply for her own amusement that sb,
first developed her remarkable gifts of iml
tatlon, until now she has found that an,
can turn it to a source of profit and this sh.
IL doing.
Tier bro language education was onl,
just begun IN tho country out in Michigan
When she was d very little girl she came 1,
New York to live, and since then she ha
had tD GaDur1 nnpp bird storpu and rnn,
such birds as she and her friends possess
for her tuition.
Now, to come back to the physiological
feature of the matter, there ars q qooc
many people who will tell you Just e1actl,
how Miss Stephenson does these wonderful
limitations. 1t IL nothing more than whist
ling, pure and simple, many of them will
say. The very keen and knowing one
sneer even at whistling. Nobody coul
whistle III that way, they say, with Just tn,
whigtling apparatus furnished by nature
Miss Stephenson, they will tell you, ha
some ingenious little mechanical device 10
making the sounds, which she o~onceals i
her mouth.
All this makes the gifted bird SOLOS
laugh. She could not whistle u note If sh
tried, she says, and as for carrying some
thing i'll her mouth you have only to watc
her as she gives the limitations to be cor
WINGED that that ID all rubbish. She sinpl
has a marvellous development OF tho voc,
chords. which has been developed by yea
of practice that began when she WAS r mel
child, and when the throat muscles al
vnpal rh,tTa u+aro yltorf arH Hsyihla m