The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-18

breakfast guest should not be dis l turbed. How cunnngly the rascals cock their heads to one side, keeping an eve on me lest I shy clod or stone to shoo them away. One can't blame them for their constant suspicion. It has been bred in them through long generations of con- tinuous flight from persecution. Mans inhumanity'' to birds, I thought has made countless thousands'' shy, more's the pity! Look how funnily they get around; three hops, then Mir Robin raises 1 his head and holds the body in splendid pose, while he turns his graceful neck this way and that to both watch the enemy and spy the wrigglng worm.
 Now, Mr. Field Lark, come on in, the eating is fine. l VOW I won't move. But it's only at the far end of the rows hell pick his meagre meal while I'm in the garden. There are fewer larks than robins and they are more shy. l wonder why? Have the destructive forces fought the lark more consistently, or is it that his brighter plumage made of him a more conspicuous target? Don't you remember the whir and f1utter of his cupped wings as he rose from the hillside?
 How their presence and plaintive calls carry me back to the sedge fields around 'my boyhood home! They were alive with larks and robins. And the old homestead II can see the old, low story and half building with it's wide double-doored hall way through which the cool breezes wait ed. I can see the broad stairway that led to the rooms above; and the yawning, black door at it's head that led into the low, dark attic room under the roof, the terror of my younger days. car
 lsee again tl1e d-fashaitaDti. t12i1a1s! see again the large, old-fashioned fire place in mothers room, and hear the roar and crackle of burning hickory and oak as the cheering blaze and sparks wait up the chimney, where he would gather and watch the glowing beds of coals where the pictures came, While we l1s- tened to the stories of When l was a
 child" in mothers cheery voice l can see the great oaks in one corner of the yard and the tall old poplar opposite, whose honey-laden blooms were a source of beauty and joy each succeeding year. | How the bees would fill the air with their 1 cheerful hum at blossom time, especially
 when the "honey dew fell.
 | I can see the wide-spreadng branches
 of the white mulberry trees under whose 1 deep shade I have spent so many happy
 hours at play and the rough-barked | thorny locusts beside one of which was placed by Aunt Maria, our old | black cook while my height was meas | ured and a two-inch augur hole was bored | to receive a lock of my hairs and into which a red oak peg was securely driven
 so that might be relieved of the phthsc i jess as soon as he grow up 'bove dat peg And the yellowing fields of corn
 with their fragrance of ripening fodder and the old orchard with it's luscious ] apples peaches, pears, cherries and the great old rambling plum thicket where l the yellow. juicy plums-sweet as nectar hung in bushels; and the long. tortuous ditches, along whose weed-choked banks
 hunted the guinea s' nest. And then
 the we'll marked path over the hill to the
 old sycamore hoe.' Oh that 'old swim
 ing hole.'
 | How I wish I had the pen of a Riley that I might fittingly sing of the mem
 ories that cluster round it, and the faces 1 of all the boys that congregated there:
 scattered now OCT all the world; many 1 of them have passed over" but their features are so clear to my minds eye ! this morning
 Thank you, little birds. Your visit has | brought a joy to me this day you little
 dream of. Your presence has retouched
 and frightened picture in which some
 of the colors were slightly dimmed by
 times eracing fingers" I hope you Will
 spend the whole season with me.
 | You are very welcome.