R.

I HAD not spent many days in The Little Lover's door-yard before
realizing that there was something in the wind. If an inoffensive person
fancies sitting in the shade of a sycamore with her horse grazing
quietly beside her, who should say her nay? If, at her approach,
a--feathered--person steals away to the top of the highest, most distant
oak within sight and, silent and motionless, keeps his eye on her till
she departs; if, as she innocently glances up at the trees, she
discovers a second--feathered--person's head extended cautiously from
behind a trunk, its eyes fixed on hers; or if, as she passes along
a--sycamore--street, a person comes to a window and cranes his neck to
look at her, and instantly leaves the premises; then surely, as the
world wags, she is quite justified in having a mind of her own in the
matter. Still more, when it comes to finding chips under a window--who
could do aught but infer that a carpenter lived within? Not I. And so it
came about that I discovered that one of the apartments in the back of
the wren sycamore had been rented by a pair of well-meaning but
suspicious California woodpeckers, first cousins of the eastern
red-heads.

[Illustration: California Woodpecker.

(One half natural size.)]

[Illustration: Red-headed Woodpecker--Eastern.

(One half natural size.)]

It is unpleasant to be treated as if you needed detectives on your
track. It strains your faith in human nature; the rest of the world must
be very wicked if people suspect such extremely good creatures as you
are! And then it reflects on the detectives; it shows them so lacking in
discernment. Nevertheless, "A friend should bear his friend's
infirmities," and I was determined to be friends with the woodpeckers.
One of them kept me waiting an hour one morning. When I first saw it, it
was on its tree trunk, but when it first saw me, it promptly left for
parts unknown. I stopped at a respectful distance from its tree--several
rods away--and threw myself down on the warm sand in the bed of the dry
stream, between high hedges of exquisite lemon-colored mustard. Patient
waiting is no loss, observers must remember if they would be consoled
for their lost hours. In this case I waited till I felt like a
lotus-eater who could have stayed on forever. A dove brooded her eggs on
a branch of the spreading sycamore whose arms were outstretched
protectingly above me; the sun rested full on its broad leaves, and bees
droned arou