Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 46905-h.htm or 46905-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46905/46905-h/46905-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46905/46905-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See https://archive.org/details/kentuckywarb00allerich THE KENTUCKY WARBLER [Illustration: "THERE HE WAS--THE KENTUCKY WARBLER!"] THE KENTUCKY WARBLER by JAMES LANE ALLEN [Illustration: logo] _When the population of this immense Western Republic will have diffused itself over every acre of ground fit for the comfortable habitation of man, ... then not a warbler shall flit through our thickets, but its name, its notes, its habits will be familiar to all--repeated in their sayings and celebrated in their village songs._ --ALEXANDER WILSON With a Frontispiece in Colour Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1918 Copyright, 1918, by Doubleday, Page & Company All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian TO THE YOUNG KENTUCKY FOREST-LOVER CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I HOME 3 CHAPTER II SCHOOL 45 CHAPTER III FOREST 100 CHAPTER IV BIRD 161 CHAPTER V ROAD 175 THE KENTUCKY WARBLER [Illustration: chapter I--title decoration] I THE HOME Webster, along with thousands of other lusty forward-looking Kentucky children, went to the crowded public schools. There every morning against his will but with the connivance of his parents he was made a prisoner, as it seemed to him, and for long hours held as such while many things disagreeable or unnecessary, some by one teacher and some by another, were forced into his head. Soon after they were forced in most of the things disappeared from the head. What became of them nobody knew: Webster didn't know and he didn't care. During the forcing-in process month by month and year by year he now and then picked up a pleasant idea for himself, some wonderful idea about great things on ahead in life or about the tempting world just outside school. He picked up such ideas with ease and eagerness and held on to them.