Another night he brought a singing bird in a cage, and pictures of other birds who were naturally wild. He began to teach them the ways of the birds they would see in New Jersey, how to tell their songs apart, where to look for their nests; all the queer little wonderful things that a bird lover knows, and that Michael because of his long habits of roaming about the woods knew by heart. The little bird in its cage stayed in the yellow and white room, and strange to say thrived, becoming a joy and a wonder to all visitors, and a marvel to those who lived in the court because of its continuous volume of brilliant song, bursting from a heart that seemed to be too full of happiness and must bubble over into music. The “kids” and even the older fellows felt a proprietorship in it, and liked to come and stand beneath the cage and call to it as it answered “peep” and peeked between the gilded bars to watch them. One night, with the help of Will French who had some wealthy friends, Michael borrowed a large picture of a sunset, and spoke to them about the sunlight and its effects on growing things, and the wonder of its departure for the night. By this time they would listen in awed silence to anything Michael said, though the picture was perhaps one too many for most of them. Sam, however, heard with approval, and afterwards went up reverently and laid his finger on the crimson and the purple and the gold of the picture. Sam knew, and understood, for he had seen the real thing. Then he turned to the others and said: “Say, fellers, it’s aw-right. You wait till yer see one. Fine ez silk, an’ twicet as nateral.” One big dark fellow who had lately taken to coming to the gatherings, turned scornfully away, and replied: “Aw shucks! I don’t see nodding in it!” but loyalty to Michael prevented others who might have secretly favored this view from expressing it, and the big dark fellow found himself in the minority. And so the work went on. Spring was coming, and with it the end of Jim’s “term,” and the beginning of Michael’s experiment on the farm. Meantime Michael was working hard at his law, and studying half the night when he came back from the alley work. If he had not had an iron constitution, and thirteen years behind him of healthy out-door life, with plenty of sleep and exercise and good food, he could not have stood it. As it was, the hard work was good for him, for it kept him from brooding over himself, and his own hopeless love of the little girl who was far across the water. Some weeks after Christmas there had come a brief note from Starr, his name written in her hand, the address in her father’s.