Alicia looked so calm, I wondered whether
She cared if birds were killed to trim her bonnet.
Her hand fell lightly on my hand;
And I fancied that a stain of death
Like that which doomed the Lady of Macbeth
Was on her hand.

--Elizabeth Cavazza

CHAPTER I

THE ORCHARD

Bobolink, that in the meadow
Or beneath the orchard's shadow
Keepest up a constant rattle,
Joyous as my children's prattle,
Welcome to the North again.
--_Thos. Hill._

My native home was in a pleasant meadow not far from a deep wood, at
some distance from the highway. From this it was separated by plowed
fields and a winding country lane, carpeted with grass and fringed with
daisies.

While it was yet dawn, long before the glint of the sun found its way
through the foliage, the air was musical with the twittering of our
feathered colony.

It is true our noisy neighbors, the blue-jays, sometimes disturbed my
mother by their hoarse chattering when she was weary of wing and wanted
a quiet hour to meditate, but they disturbed us younger ones very
little. My mother did not think they were ever still a minute.
Constantly hopping back and forth, first on one bough, then on another,
flirting down between times to pick up a cricket or a bug, they were
indeed, a most fidgetty set. Their restlessness extended even to their
handsome top-knots, which they jerked up and down like a questioning
eyebrow. They were beautiful to look at had they only possessed a
little of the dignity and composure of our family. But as I said, we
little ones did not trouble ourselves about them.

The air was so pleasant, our nest so cozy, and our parents provided us
such a plentiful diet of nice worms and bugs, that like other
thoughtless babies who have nothing to do but eat, sleep, and grow, we
had no interest in things outside and did not dream there was such a
thing as vexation or sorrow or crime in this beautiful world. When our
parents were off gathering our food, we seldom felt lonely, for we
nestled snugly and kept each other company by telling what we would do
when we should be strong enough to fly.

At this stage of our existence we were as ungainly a lot of children as
could well be imagined. To look at our long, scrawny necks and big
heads so disproportioned to the size of our bodies, which were scantily
covered with a fuzzy down that scarcely concealed our nakedness, who
would have thought that in time we wo