Well, Dicky had a good home of his own, and lived for a purpose, although he never developed into a trained singer. In the heart of him he longed for a mate, and often expressed his desires in low, musical notes. But no mate came to him, and he would sit for hours pondering on his bachelor's lot, and singing more notes. Now, wild birds are constantly having something "happen" to them. They fly against a wire or get a wing hurt, or the young fall out of the nest and can't find their mother. Dicky's mistress was always on the lookout for such accidents, and she brought such birds into the house and nursed them and brought them back to health when possible. It occurred to her to offer a "calling" or "vocation" to Dicky. So she made a small private hospital of his cage, into which she placed the victims of accident or sickness as she found them. Dicky was surprised, never having seen a bird save his parents, and his lady-love in his dreams, and at first he stood on tiptoe and was frightened. But he learned to be kind after a while, and to show his visitors where the food and water were kept, and to snuggle up to them on the perch when it came bedtime. Many and many a poor invalid did he aid in restoring to freedom and flight, until he became pretty well acquainted with the birds that nest in our grounds. Year after year the good work went on, and Dicky developed more musical talent, until he sang sweetly, imitating the finches and linnets outside. In the fall of the year, when the wild birds were thinking of their annual migrations, Dicky himself grew restless and quit his songs. Then his mistress opened his door and told him he might "go." Not far away, of course, but all about in the room, that seemed to this caged bird as big as any world could be. In his quest for new nooks he came by accident upon the mirror above the fireplace. Standing on the edge of a little vase before the glass, just in front of the beveled edge of it, he espied two yellow birds, one in the glass itself and another in the beveled edge, as a strict law of science had determined should be the case. In a second the whole bearing of the bird was changed. His feathers lay close, his legs stood long and slim, and his eyes bulged, as they never had bulged since the lids parted when he was two weeks old. Then he found voice. He sang as never a green bird sang sweeter. He turned his head and the two birds in the glass turned their heads. He preened his wing and the two birds preened each a wing. His little throat swelled out in melody, the tip of his beak pointing straight to the ceiling of the big room as if it were indeed the blue sky, and the two birds sang with uplifted beaks and swelling throats. They were of his own kind, his own race, his own ancestral comrades. And they were not green! The low mesas of the Canary Islands never resounded to such melody.