The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1914-01-03
AGAINST BIRDSON HATS


that morning and as Henry Sparks
rose from the breakfast table prepar-
atory to lighting his cigar and start
ing for the office he said to his wife:
eliza, you may have the fall hat
you've been yearning for. Here's the
ten dollars. but please, in making your
purchase remember my prejudice
against birds in bonnets."
Eliza beamed. "All right, Henry"
she said; "I'll go straight down to
Nine. Capote's this morning. can
get beauty for ten dollars, | know,
and | won't have single song bird
on it."
That night after dinner Mrs. Sparks
sent the maid of all work into the
front bedroom to bring box that ar
rived shortly before from Nine Ca
pote's. Mrs. Sparks opened the box,
lifted the wonderful creation and said
the usual womanly thing: isn't it
dream?"
Henry Sparks looked at the hat
ouizzically. There was not perhaps
expressed in his face the admiration
and entire approval that Mrs. Sparks
had hoped for.
Henry" she said, 81 know there is
birds head or two and a lot of fea-
theirs in it, but Nine. Capote told me
that they we're all made-up things,
mostly barnyard fowls. This head
with the slate-blue neck and just
touch of brown at the place where it
was separated from the breast, was
the head of common domestic fowl
i'm China. Now don't look that way.
Everybody is wearing feathers, and |
,,h, 7 cbn,,lIn'f thnrn ~
Henry Sparks rose from the table
and took the befeathered hat out of
his wifes hand and looked at it
through his glasses. "This," he said,
pointing with his finger at the birds
head with beautiful steel blue feath-
ers, "is, as understand Nine. Capote,
the head Of a common Chinese do
nestle fowl. Eliza, when you wander
along by some tumbling stream in the
spring time you will hear now and
then a rafting cry. 1t is birds
voice. 1t is as much a part of the
time and place and of the wildness of
it all as are the trees, the stream or
even the April clouds overhead. Wan
der along the same stream in the heat
of summer and you hear the same
rafting cry. A bird form dashes by,
then stops in midfiight and hovers
lightly over a pool beneath. Then
there is a sound of the splash of wat
ers as feathered form descends and
plunges. There is a sensation of cool
ness in the sound of that plunge that
tempers the heat of the August day
to the wayfarer. Perhaps you have a
legal right to wear this bird because
it may have been killed in New York,
where the wise legislators withdrew
from this creature the protection of
the law. The men who urged that it
be exempt from protection were men
of the kind who go into the northern
woods and drag seines, dynamite
streams and catch and kill thousands
of fish that they may pick out the big
ones for the market. The souls of
these men are in their pockets. This
bird catches a few small fish for the
sustenance of itself and its young. 1t
adds, when not on bonnet, living
interest to every waterside. Eliza,
your Chinese domestic fowl is an Am
erican kingfisher.
"Henry, Mime"
eliza, this bird hat has been eat
ing up the crops in India, thus causing
famine in that country, was Matched
in nest In an Illinois tree. Perhaps
you have the legal right to wear it.
The wise legislators of Illinois re-
Gently added this bird to the game
list, so that it may be slaughtered and
made into pies. The souls of the leg
islators were situated in their stom-
achs This bird has stood as an en-
blem of peace since the world was, and
yet every pot and millinery hunter in
the land makes war upon it. You are
a good Episcopalian and you some
times tell me that there is nothing
more beautiful than all that pertains
to the church and its teachings. Do
you, Trinitarian that you are, know
that it was in the living form of one
of these murdered innocents in your
bonnet that the Holy Spirit descended
upon our Savior as He stood at the
side of the Baptist by the waters of
Jordan? Eliza, this East Indian crop
destroying, starvation-p producing bird
is an Illinois mourning dove.
"Doubtlcss, Nine. Capote told you
that this little bunch of feathers that
clasps the upturned brim of the hat
came from a bird harpy of some re-
mote region whose daily practice it is
to carry off and devour the sweet
babes of doting mothers. Well, these
cinnamon-brown feathers with these
soft gray dotted with darker color re-
present all that is left of hermit
thrush, bird that sings it's seraphic