During the third season some accident befell the pair, or their nest; they suddenly disappeared and thenceforward we missed their melodious invocations. Gram, in particular, lamented their departure. A pair, perhaps the same pair, afterwards built in a butternut tree near the Edwards' farmhouse; but they never returned to us. To the lover of birds, the oriole in its flight among the trees, like a yellow meteor flashing past, is a sight that instantly rivets the attention, and is as delightfully startling to the eye as its song is to the ear. But I know of no device by means of which they can be attracted to nest in any given locality; their tastes are not well enough known to us; "houses," like those which attract the blue-bird and the martin, possess no charm for the oriole. With the first of June Gram watched, wistfully, for the return of this pair, during a number of successive springs; and for her sake especially, we all hoped they would come back. I arrived too late the first spring, to hear the woodlands echo to the May-note of the white-throated sparrow. Once only, while going out to get the cows with little Wealthy, the second week after I came, I heard it twice repeated, from the woods along the south side of the pasture, and when I asked my small companion what kind of a bird that was, she roguishly cried, "Oh, that's old Ben Peabody." "Is that what he says?" I asked, for the name at once struck me as being like the bird's note. "Yes," cried Wealthy. "He says, 'Old Ben Peabody, Peabody, Peabody,' just as plain as anything; Theodora says so; and so does Nell and all of us, but Addison. Ad thinks he says, 'All day whittling, whittling, whittling.' And Alf Batchelder says,--but I'll not tell what he thinks the bird says." "What is it?" I queried. "It's nothing very pretty," quoth Wealthy, running off to get around the cows, thereby evading the question altogether, for she had not as yet grown very well acquainted with me.