Did not all this prove her to be sweet and tender and loving and gentle and kind?  Yes—­a thousand times yes.

My grandmother once had her nest near a cemetery, and often related pathetic incidents which had come under her observation at that time.  One in particular I now recalled.  It was of a woman who came every day to weep over the mound where her babe was buried.  She was worn to a shadow from her long watching through its illness, and when it was taken from her, her grief was deep.  The bright world was no longer bright since she was bereft of her darling, and her moans for the lost loved one were heartrending.

This incident was only yet another instance of the tenderness of woman’s nature, and I could not reconcile it with what my mother had told me.

“No, no,” I repeated as I cuddled my head under my wing, “never can I believe that woman, tender-hearted woman, who is all love and mercy, all gentleness and pity, never can I believe she is our enemy.”  And resolving to ask my mother to more fully explain her unjust assertion I fell asleep.

But a source of fresh anxiety arose which for a time caused me to forget the matter.

The lindens which fringed the wood were now in full leafage, adorned with their delicate ball-like tassels, and hosts of birds flitted among them daily.  Many of them were of the kind frequently known as indigo birds, smaller than the ordinary bluebird.  In color they were of the metallic cast of blue which has a sheen distinct from the rich shade seen on the jay’s wings or the brilliance of the bluebird.  Flashing in and out among the hanging blossoms their beautiful blue coats made them an easy target for the boys who attended the neighborhood country school.

[Illustration:  The Indigo Bird.]

To bring down a sweet songster with a shower of stones, panting and bleeding to the ground, they thought was the best sport in the world, and the woods rang and echoed with their whoops and cheers as each poor bird fell to the earth.  A mere glimpse of one of the blue beauties as he hid among the leaves seemed to fire these cruel children with a wish to kill it.

One half-grown boy, who went by the name of Big Bill, was noticeable for his brutality.  He encouraged the others in cruelties which they might not have thought of, for such is the force of evil example and companionship.  A distinguishing mark was a large scar on his cheek, probably inflicted by some enraged animal while being tortured by him.  I always felt sure Big Bill would come to some bad end.  My mother said that a cruel childhood was often a training school for the gallows, and the boy who killed defenseless birds and bugs deadened his sensibilities and destroyed his moral nature so that it was easy to commit greater crimes.

So dreadful became the persecutions of the schoolboys that the indigo birds finally held a council and determined to leave that part of the country and settle far from the habitations of men, where they might live unmolested and free from persecutions.