“I am a great lover of birds,” returned the professor enthusiastically, “and I find them very interesting subjects of study.  By the way, I was reading the other day a little incident connected with one of America’s great men which impressed me deeply.  The story goes that he was one day walking in company with some noted statesmen, busily engaged in conversation.  But he was not too much occupied to notice that a young bird had fallen from its nest near the path where they were walking.  He stopped short and crossing over to where the bird was lying, tenderly picked it up and put it back into its nest.  There was a gentleman of a noble nature!  No wonder that man was a leader and a liberator!”

“Who was he?”

“The grand, the great Abraham Lincoln,” responded the professor impressively.

“Well, he’d be the very one to do just such a kind deed as that,” was the colonel’s hearty response.  “No man ever lived who had a bigger, more merciful heart than ‘Honest Abe.’”

For myself I did not know who Abraham Lincoln was.  I had never heard the name before, but I was quite sure from the proud tone of the professor’s voice that he was a distinguished man, as I was equally sure from the story of his pity for the helpless bird, that he was a good man.

“You mentioned the industry of the grakle a moment ago,” resumed the professor.  “Do you know that the redwing is equally as useful, and besides he is a delightful singer?

  “The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee.

“Do you remember that line, colonel?” and the professor softly whistled a strain in imitation of a bird’s note.  “The services of our little brothers of the air are exceedingly valuable to the horticulturist.  And think of the damage done to arboriculture by the woodborers alone were it not for the help given by the birds.  Did you ever notice those borers at work, colonel?  Some writer has well described them as animated gimlets.  They just stick their pointed heads into the bark and turn their bodies around and around and out pours a little stream of sawdust.  The birds would pick off such pests fast enough if people would only give them a chance and not scare them off with shotguns.”

“Yes, the birds earn their way, there is no denying it, and he is a very stupid farmer who begrudges them the little corn and wheat they take from the fields.  The account is more than balanced by the good they do.”  Then the conversation ceased, for the colonel and his friend moved off to inspect the quince bushes.

Pleased by the praises they had bestowed on us for our efforts in cleaning the fruit trees and cornfields of injurious insects, I went to work with new vigor to get out some bugs for my luncheon, and was thus pleasantly employed when a sharp twitter from my mother attracted my attention.

“Look, children!” she exclaimed.  “Here come our young ladies with some company from the city.  Be careful to notice what they have on their heads and then tell me what you think of our sweet, pretty ladies.”