Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-01-07
THOSE PAGAN BIRDS
By John Brock.

w URNING the midnight oil is an unprot
X able business when it leads you to
~ consume all your store of wood and
you have to sally forth for more Sin the chill
of the morning cool" You try in vain to
comfort yourself with some vague platitude
on the benefits of self-discipline, or you think
of the thousands of farm boys who are getting
their fingers nipped at the self-same oc0upa-
ton, and give an extra shiver for their bene-
fit What really helps is a gay party Of
pygmy nuthatches, tiny as humming birds,
the whole blue-gray cloud of them chattering
away at the top of their voices as they skim
along before the east wind.
"Hey, you fellows" you call to them, you
belong up on Cuyamacha, among the pines"
The sound of your voice seems to drive them
like a spatter of raindrops before a gust of
breeze. Half dozen of them perform gyra-
lions that would stump an airplane, and one
of them loops the loop. With their long
wings and stubby tails that seem to tumble
through the air. At first you are likely to
get the impression that they need more steer
ing equipment, until you discover that they
are merely snatching a light lunch. swallow
fashion, as t:4ey see it futtering by.
The leader settles his flock by bringing up
into the wind, like a sailbOat, on the shell
tered side of the hill where your peach trees
very much need their attentions. They are
experts who do more thorough job than any
nsecticide on the market. And between their
ceaseless chatter and your own intuitions you
get the answer to your remark There's
snow on Cuyamacha!"
You can't see it yet, you can only feel it in
the wind. And now you are happy to be OUT
for this is really the poets hour. No evening
has quite the mystery and the charm Of it.
The dusk of day resolves itself into dusk
as soft and deep as the velvet night
it becomes, and as 1llimitably distant, more
distant than the stars themselves The dusk
of dawn is different 1t has a fluid quality
though some sublimated stream poured
down from heaven to inundate the earth, pure
and cool and Swallowed as earthly waters are,
but refined into dream substance, and sub
merging earthly things in the essence of it's
own unreality. 1t ends strange wild beauty
to the very scene you know so we'll by sun
light.
Suddenly far overhead rings out the voice
of another fugitive from the pines. 1t is the
varied thrush. His notes sound, swell into
thrilling ecstasy, and die away, only to wake
again IN more bI Oyant melody. And by the
very glory of it you know that he is winging
through the sunlight, far above the ghostly
flood If dusk enveiOping your world. He her.
aids the descent of the golden rays, now
mountains, which will dissolve the shadowy
depths. His voice pierces its mysteries, wakes
the throng Who hide among the leaves.
Now Cuydmacha's frosty head glows pin
and Dionysian chorus fills the air. No plati-
tudes about self-discipline for them. They
have fed the cold and hunger of their lot to
find food and shelter. This is their grace be-
cir -lornn meal 'To be good is to
be happy may be a Christian motto fit for
men, but theirs is the Joyous Pagan reversal
of it, TO DE happy is to be good" Joy S
very condition Of life to them; they could not
live without it. And hearing them you some
times wonder if men really can.