efore she realized
that she was flying. Then she stopped and listened, and rolling with
the river, she heard those bold true tones. Close to earth, she went
back again, to see if, unobserved, she could find a spot where she
might watch the stranger that had kissed her. When at last she reached
a place where she could see him plainly, his beauty was so bewildering,
and his song so enticing that she gradually hopped closer and closer
without knowing she was moving.

High in the sumac the Cardinal had sung until his throat was parched,
and the fountain of hope was almost dry. There was nothing save defeat
from overwhelming numbers in Rainbow Bottom. He had paraded, and made
all the music he ever had been taught, and improvised much more. Yet
no one had come to seek him. Was it of necessity to be the Limberlost
then? This one day more he would retain his dignity and his location.
He tipped, tilted, and flirted. He whistled, and sang, and trilled.
Over the lowland and up and down the shining river, ringing in every
change he could invent, he sent for the last time his prophetic
message, "Wet year! Wet year!"

Chapter 3

"Come here! Come here!" entreated the Cardinal

He felt that his music was not reaching his standard as he burst into
this new song. He was almost discouraged. No way seemed open to him
but flight to the Limberlost, and he so disdained the swamp that
love-making would lose something of its greatest charm if he were
driven there for a mate. The time seemed ripe for stringent measures,
and the Cardinal was ready to take them; but how could he stringently
urge a little mate that would not come on his imploring invitations?
He listlessly pecked at the berries and flung abroad an inquiring
"Chip!" With just an atom of hope, he frequently mounted to his
choir-loft and issued an order that savoured far more of a plea, "Come
here! Come here!" and then, leaning, he listened intently to the voice
of the river, lest he fail to catch the faintest responsive "Chook!" it
might bear.

He could hear the sniffling of carp wallowing beside the bank. A big
pickerel slashed around, breakfasting on minnows. Opposite the sumac,
the black bass, with gamy spring, snapped up, before it struck the
water, every luckless, honey-laden insect that fell from the feast of
sweets in a blossom-whitened wild crab. The sharp bark of the red
squirrel and the low of cattle, lazily chewing their cuds among the
willows, ca