Part 18

Again Gray Lady consulted her calendar. “There will be eight Saturday meetings before the Christmas holidays, and we must all be very industrious so as to be ready for our fair.”

“Where? what?” cried Sarah Barnes and three or four other girls together, for to these children on this remote hillside the word “fair” meant visions of the County Agricultural Fair, and this stood for the very gayest of times that they knew.

“A little fair of our own to be held in Goldilocks’ playroom and the workroom where the ‘Kind Hearts’ Club’ will offer its friends bird-houses, dolls, button-bags, cooking-aprons, and home-made cake and candy. Then, with the money thus earned, the Club will have a little fund for its winter work, and each member will, of course, have a vote as to how the money is to be spent.”

Gray Lady opened a small drawer in her desk, and took from it two packages of picture cards. The picture on the cards of the first pack was of a little boy releasing a rabbit that had been caught in a trap. The picture of the other cards was of a little girl standing in a doorway, and scattering grain sweepings to the hungry birds on the snow-covered ground.

“Now, who wishes to join the ‘Kind Hearts’ Club’? We must have some members before we can elect our officers and begin. The promise you make is very simple.” On the cards they read only these words: “I promise to be kind to every living thing.” Under this was a place to write the name of the member.

“How can we always tell what it is kind to do? Some folks think different ways,” asked Eliza Clausen, the hat feathers still fresh in her mind.

“Our hearts must tell us that, Eliza,” said Gray Lady, very gently. “We cannot carry rules about with us, but, if we have kind hearts always in our breasts, we shall not make mistakes. And even if our hearts do not feel for others in the beginning, they may be taught by example, just as our heads may learn from books. That is what I wish our Kind Hearts’ Club to stand for—to be a reminder that there is nothing better to work for in this world than that our hearts may be kind and true to ourselves, each other, and to God’s dumb animals that he has given for our service and has trusted to our mercy, for this is true worship and doing His will.”

Each one of the children present signed silently and Gray Lady copied the names in a book, but let the children keep the cards, both as a reminder and to show their parents.

Miss Wilde came forward at this moment and she and their hostess explained the manner of electing officers. Before they trooped out on to the lawn, even then reluctant to go, Goldilocks had been made president, Miss Wilde, vice-president, Sarah Barnes, treasurer, and Tommy Todd, who wrote a very clear, round hand, secretary, Dave, Jared Hill, and the two Shelton boys, a committee to collect old wood, and Eliza Clausen, Ruth Banks, and Mary Barnes, a committee to collect odd patterns for patchwork, something in which the older country folks showed great ingenuity and took no little pride.

* * * * *

“Oh my, do look at the Swallows—there’s hundreds of them on the wires,” said Tommy, as Goldilocks was wheeled out on to the front walk to tell the party “Good-by,” her mother following.

“I wish I knew what really truly becomes of them,” said Sarah Barnes; “father says nobody knows, though some people say that they go down in pond mud and bury themselves all winter like frogs, and though you see them last right by water, I don’t believe it’s likely, do you, Gray Lady? Though at the end they disappear all of a sudden.”

“It is not only unlikely, but impossible. I think next Friday we will begin our real lessons with these fleet-winged birds of passage that are passing now every day and night.”

After the good-bys were said again and again, the children scattered down the road, talking all together, very much like a twittering flock of Swallows themselves, and like the birds they were neither still nor silent until darkness fell. Miss Wilde followed, smiling and happy, for she had found a friend who not only did not belittle her work in the hillside school, but showed her undreamed-of possibilities in it.

VIII THE PROCESSION PASSES

Time—September 20th. Place—The School at Foxes Corners.

These are the stories that Gray Lady told or read from her scrap-book between September and Flag Day. She allowed them to be copied at Miss Wilde’s request for the pleasure of the other children in the township.

THE SWALLOWS

Five Swallows and a Changeling

“I wonder if there is a child living in the real country who does not know a Swallow by sight the moment its eyes rest upon the bird? I think not, and a great many people who are only in the country at midsummer and in early autumn also know the Swallows, even though they cannot tell the different kinds apart, for during the nesting time, as well as the flocking period that follows, Swallows are conspicuous birds of the air and leaders of the birds that might be grouped as “The Fleetwings.” For not only do Swallows get their food while on the wing, now pursuing it through the upper air if the day is fair, now sweeping low over meadow, pond, and river if the clouds hang heavy and insect life keeps near to the ground, but during the flocking season, when the separate families join in the community life that they live through the winter, the Swallows are constantly on the wing.

“The day that we had the orchard party you all noticed the Swallows flying over the pond between the orchard and river woods, sometimes alighting so close together on the bushes as to be as thick as the leaves, and then again stringing along the telegraph wires, above the highway, some heading one way and some another until, evidently at a signal, they flew off again and disappeared in the distance, until they seemed but a cloud of smoke.

“We agreed, I think, some time ago, that it is much better to learn the real names of people, animals, and flowers than to simply give general names. It is more definite to say, “I saw a Swallow” flying over the moor or meadow, than to say, “I saw a bird” flying over the meadow; but it would be more interesting still if we tell the name of the particular kind of Swallow that was seen, for among the many kinds that exist at least five are quite common, according to the part of the United States in which one lives.

“Can any of you tell me the names of these Swallows, how they differ in plumage, and where they live? I can see by Dave’s face that he knows something about them and I think Sarah Barnes does also, while as for Tommy Todd, both hands are up in spite of jack-knife and the windmill he is making and he can hardly wait for me to stop.

“Now, Tommy, how many kinds of Swallows do you know?”

“Three!” he replied promptly. “Barn Swallows, and Chimney Swallows, and Dirt Swallows!”

“I have heard of Barn and Chimney Swallows, but never of a Dirt Swallow. Please describe it to me,” said Gray Lady, looking interested.

Tommy hesitated for a minute, for it is one thing to know a bird by sight, but quite another to carry a correct picture of it in your mind’s eye and then put it into words.

“A Dirt Swallow is pretty small and a kind of a dirty colour on top and a stripe across his chest, the rest white, and his tail hasn’t sharp points, and he isn’t blue and shiny like a Barn Swallow. He doesn’t build a nice nest like the others, but bores a hole right into a dirt bank, ever so far in, like a Kingfisher does, just like he was a ground-hog, and puts feathers in at the end for a nest. That’s why we call ’em Dirt Swallows. There’s a bank above Uncle Hill’s gravel-pit that’s full of the holes, and another bank full right at Farm’s End above the sand beach where we camped a week last summer. The way I found out about the holes was by diggin’ down a piece back of the edge of the bank, for sometimes they bore as much as four feet. The eggs are real white, not spotted like Barn Swallows’, ’cause we found a couple of bad ones, that hadn’t hatched, among the feathers.” Here Tommy paused for breath, his face all aglow with eagerness.