You ought to hear by day--or better, by night--the call of the migrating birds as they pass over, through the sky, on their way to the South. East or west, on the Atlantic or on the Pacific shore, or in the vast valley of the Mississippi, you may hear at night, so high in air that you cannot see the birds, these voices of the passing migrants. _Chink_, _chink_, _chink!_ will drop the calls of the bobolinks--fine, metallic, starry notes; _honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ the clarion cry of the wild geese will ring along the aërial way, as they shout to one another and to you, listening far below them on the steadfast earth. Far away, yonder in the starry vault, far beyond the reach of human eyes, a multitude of feathered folk, myriads of them, are streaming over; armies of them winging down the long highway of the sky from the frozen North, down to the rice fields of the Carolinas, down to the deep tangled jungles of the Amazon, down beyond the cold, cruel reach of winter. Listen as they hail you from the sky. CHAPTER XIII HONK, HONK, HONK! _Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ Out of the silence of the November night, down through the depths of the darkened sky, rang the thrilling call of the passing geese. _Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ I was out of bed in an instant; but before I had touched the floor, there was a patter of feet in the boys’ room, the creak of windows going up, and--silence. _Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ A mighty flock was coming. The stars shone clear in the far blue; the trees stood dark on the rim of the North; and somewhere between the trees and the stars, somewhere along a pathway running north and south, close up against the distant sky, the wild geese were winging. _Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ They were overhead. Clear as bugles, round and mellow as falling flute notes, ordered as the tramp of soldiers, fell the _honk_, _honk_, _honk_, as the flock in single line, or double like the letter V, swept over and was gone. We had not seen them. Out of a sound sleep they had summoned us, out of beds with four wooden legs and no wings; and we had heard the wild sky-call, had heard and followed through our open windows, through the dark of the night, up into the blue vault under the light of the stars. Round and dim swung the earth below us, hushed and asleep in the soft arms of the night. Hill and valley lay close together, farm-land and wood-land, all wrapped in the coverlet of the dark. City and town, like watch fires along the edge of a sleeping camp, burned bright on the rivers and brighter still on the ragged line of shore and sea, for we were far away near the stars. The mountains rose up, but they could not reach us; the white lakes beckoned, but they could not call us down. For the stars were bright, the sky-coast was clear, the wind in our wings was the keen, wild wind of the North, and the call that we heard--ah! who knows the call? Yet, who does not know it--that distant haunting call to fly, fly, fly?