eth of wolves.
Beneath lids scarred as by the claws of a hawk, the baby's eyes had
been blasted by some unknown prenatal disease--the terrible dead, with
their talon-hands, had smitten! The child was organically blind, and,
being defective and fatherless, Annadoah knew that, by the law of her
people, it was doomed to immediate death. While she shook with terror,
withal a grim determination rose within her. All the tremendous urge
of that mighty mother-love which has beautified and ennobled the world
clamored in the heart of this simple woman that her child _must not_
die.

As she touched the infant with a sacred tenderness, her very hands
warmed with the impassioned affection that throbbed through her with
every heart-beat. As she gazed upon the features, faintly suggestive
of its father's, she felt that she could never part from this familiar
and intimate link with the spontaneous and powerful passion of her
girlhood. When she peered into those piteous, blighted eyes, mighty
sobs of pity shook her, but she felt that she must be silent, and she
forced back the tears. Outside, a spring bunting was still singing,
sweetly, ineffably.

As she caressed it, the child's face twisted as if in pain.

"Well do I know, little one, thou dost desire thy
name--_ategarumadlune_," she said. "Thou dost desire it as that which
is as precious as thy shadow. But the _ilisitok_ has gone and never
will she breathe o'er thee the name I know . . . the name I felt
stirring within me since the night . . . when the women addressed the
dead . . . Sweetly didst thou sing within my heart--but thy song came
from the darkness. Yea . . . from the darkness. _Ioh-iooh_!"

Very gently, very softly, she pressed her fingers upon the baby's
sightless eyes.

"I shall call thee little Blind Spring Bunting," she softly murmured,
lifting the baby and pressing its tender face to her own. "Poor Little
Blind Spring Bunting." She soothed its face, infinite pity in her
eyes. "Thou wilt never see _Sukh-eh-nukh_, nor the _ahmingmah_, nor
the birds that fly in the air, Spring Bunting. All thy days shall be
as the long night, and thy whole life shall be without any light of
moon. But thy heart is warm and bright as the sun in the south, whence
Olafaksoah came, and it makes the heart of Annadoah very warm.
Poor . . . Little . . . Blind Spring Bunting!"

Murmuring softly she rocked the little baby gently in her arms. Then
she heard the ominous soun