The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-07-20

pathway to liberty and glory.
Once a storm overlook her at some
distance from home, and she applied
for shelter at neighboring farm
house, where it must with regret be
related of her that she repaid the
hospitality freely offered her by beat
ing the bird into whose cage she had
been put for the night.
She had now become the outdoor
companion of her childish friends,
hailing them from the raspberry
vines, answering their calls from the
grape arbor, or, when wedding the
beds was the duty of the hour, drop
ping to earth among the young toll
ers as though with her tiny trowel
she might join in their childish task.
Across the fields the clear yellow of
her coat cleaned in the sunlight like
ball of golden thistledown drifting
from weed to weed. But wherever
she might be, there was one summons
which she always answered. The
sound of Ezra's violin, as he took his
favorite place upon the front door
step, always brought her to his side,
and as the notes trembled under the
lads touch the birds little body
writhed, and her soft throat swelled
almost to bursting as she struggled
with her few weak notes to express
the music of her soul.
Once the young june-berry gather
ers, far from home, amid the riot of
their own laughter, caught a familiar
chirp, and. after many calls, the far
afield vagabond came circling over
their heads, and alighted socially
upon stump by their side. They
feared she would never find her way
home, but when they reached there
she was before them. To the elders
it never quite ceased to be wonder
when the slight creature, which fin
ger could crush, came safely back
out of the great, alien world for which
she had DO training, and where none
of her kith and kin abode.
But it seems that the most coy and
obdurate heart which ever covers it's
elf with feathers may be won at last,
and one July evening, when the this
tle-heads were getting ready their
down for the lining of late nests,
Downy came home to roost, leaving
shy little lover to wait for her under
the broad leaf of small maple sap
ling at the door. When she was
fairly married, she came no more to
the old home perch, but, with her
little husband in his brilliant yellow
and black suit, set up housekeeping
in small elm by the path leading to
the spring. Here the two were very
busy, the husband ranging the fields
to strip the bark from fibrous weeds
for the outer wall of the dwelling, or
pulling thistledown for its delicate
lining, the wife coming to her human
friends for help in her outfit as
young housekeeper. With indiscrim-
mate zeal she would carry off thread
and lint, search the carpets, ransack-
ing the person of little Bessie sprawl
ing in the cool grass under the trees,
or alight upon the knee of Uncle Dave,
sitting quietly in the sunshine.
The feeble old man smiled kindly
at the fearless, busting creatures
Juggling violently at his wooden cloth
ing, her small body so full of the
energy he would never know again.
She still made visits to her cage for
food, bone, and the daily bath, alight-
ing afterward upon some friendly
shoulder to dry her wet plumage,
while her husband went to the brook
side for his toilet, or ran nervously
up and down the clothes-line anx-
iously calling for the wife with such
an unaccountable taste for strange
society. She was particularly pleased
upon her visits to find the family
table set, when she made herself
much at home in investigating the
menu, and thrusting her head and
shoulders into the teacups with many
firt and futter, as if to intimate
that they might serve we'll as bath
tubs. Hot dishes had to be covered
during these tours of investigation,
lest she serve herself up as dainty
bird pie. Once, like small Eve, she
tempted her husband to the eating
of forbidden fruit on stock of choice
lettuce-seed hung to dry. The muir
muir of their happy voice from the
center of the cluster betrayed them,
and the guilty couple were driven
from their little paradise, leaving
scarcely seed for next years SOW
ing. The wild bird would venture
no nearer the abode of men than to