Mrs. Patterson enters upon this task with enthusiasm, and many a bird will live to flutter through the trees or glisten in the sunshine and gladden the earth with its beauty that but for this little book would have perched for a brief season upon the headgear of some lovely woman. Let the good work go on until the mummy of a dead bird will be recognized by all persons as an unfitting decoration for the head of womankind. JOHN F. LACEY. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE ORCHARD II. DICKEY DOWNY'S MEDITATIONS III. THE RULER WITH THE IRON HAND IV. DICKEY'S COUSINS V. "DON'T, JOHNNY" VI. THE PARROT AT A PARTY VII. A WINTER IN THE SOUTH VIII. THE PRISON IX. THE HUNTERS X. A NEW HOME XI. THE ILL-MANNERED CHILD XII. TWO SLAVES OF FASHION XIII. DICKEY'S VISIT XIV. THE COUNTRY SCHOOL XV. POLLY'S FAREWELL List of Illustrations The Indigo Bird The Summer Tanager The Baltimore Oriole The Bobolink Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan Sonnet And many humming birds were fastened on it. Caught in a net of delicate creamy crepe The dainty captives lay there dead together; No dart of slender bill, no fragile shape Fluttering, no stir of radiant feather; Alicia looked so calm, I wondered whether She cared if birds were killed to trim her bonnet. Her hand fell lightly on my hand; And I fancied that a stain of death Like that which doomed the Lady of Macbeth Was on her hand. --Elizabeth Cavazza CHAPTER I THE ORCHARD Bobolink, that in the meadow Or beneath the orchard's shadow Keepest up a constant rattle, Joyous as my children's prattle, Welcome to the North again. --_Thos. Hill._ My native home was in a pleasant meadow not far from a deep wood, at some distance from the highway. From this it was separated by plowed fields and a winding country lane, carpeted with grass and fringed with daisies. While it was yet dawn, long before the glint of the sun found its way through the foliage, the air was musical with the twittering of our feathered colony. It is true our noisy neighbors, the blue-jays, sometimes disturbed my mother by their hoarse chattering when she was weary of wing and wanted a quiet hour to meditate, but they disturbed us younger ones very little. My mother did not think they were ever still a minute. Constantly hopping back and forth, first on one bough, then on another, flirting down between times to pick up a cricket or a bug, they were indeed, a most fidgetty set. Their restlessness extended even to their handsome top-knots, which they jerked up and down like a questioning eyebrow. They were beautiful to look at had they only possessed a little of the dignity and composure of our family. But as I said, we little ones did not trouble ourselves about them.