I remember enjoying an article on the catbird several years ago in the Atlantic Monthly, and wanting to know more of the woman who had observed a pair of birds so closely, and could make so charming a story of their love-affairs and housekeeping experiences, and thinking that most persons knew next to nothing about birds, their habits, and homes.

Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, who wrote that bird talk, is now a dear friend of mine, and while spending a day with me lately was kind enough to answer all my questions as to how and where and when she began to study birds.  She is not a young woman, is the proud grandmother of seven children; but her bright face crowned with handsome white hair, has that young, alert, happy look that comes with having a satisfying hobby that goes at a lively pace.  She said:  “I never thought of being anything but a housekeeping mother until I was about thirty-one and my husband lost all his property, and want, or a thousand wants, stared us in the face.  Making the children’s clothes and my own, and cooking as well, broke down my health, so I bethought me of writing, which I always had a longing to do.”

“What did you begin with?”

“Well, pretty poor stuff that no one was anxious to pay for; mostly in essay form expressing my own opinions on various important subjects.  But it didn’t go.  I was complaining of my bad luck to a plain-spoken woman in charge of a circulating library, and she gave me grand advice.  ’No one cares a snap for your opinions.  You must tell something that folks want to know.’”

“Did you then take up birds?”

“O no; I went into the library, read some of Harriet Martineau’s talks on pottery, and told children how a teacup was made and got one dollar for that.  But those pot-boilers were not inspiring, and about ten years later a second woman adviser turned my course into another channel.”

“How did that come about?”

“I had a bird-loving friend from the West visiting me, and took her to Prospect Park, Brooklyn, to see our birds.  She pointed out several, and so interested me in their lives that from that day I began to study them, especially the wood-thrush and catbird.  After I had studied them for two years, I wrote what I had seen.  From that time my course has seemed marked out for me, and my whole time has been given to this one theme.  I think every woman over forty-five ought to take up a fad; they would be much happier and better off.”

“You told me once that three women had each in turn changed your career.  Do give me the third.”

“Well, after my articles and books had met with favour (I have brought out fifteen books), invitations to lecture or talk about birds kept pouring in.  I was talking this over with Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), declaring I could never appear in public, that I should be frightened out of my wits, and that I must decline.  My voice would all go, and my heart jump into my mouth.  She exclaimed, ’For a sensible woman, you are the biggest fool I ever met!’ This set me thinking, and with many misgivings I accepted an invitation.”