Friends and Helpers Part 25

I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his faint and mournful cry; He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery; He has no thought of any wrong, He scans me with a fearless eye,-- Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night When the loosed storm breaks furiously?

My driftwood fire will burn so bright!

To what warm shelter canst thou fly?

I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky: For are we not G.o.d's children both, Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

CELIA THAXTER.

[Ill.u.s.tration of two birds.]

THE COST OF A HAT.

"What does it cost, this garniture of death?

It costs the life which G.o.d alone can give; It costs dull silence where was music's breath, It costs dead joy, that foolish pride may live.

Ah, life, and joy, and song, depend upon it, Are costly trimmmgs for a woman's bonnet!"

MAY RILEY SMITH

Among the cruel things that are done thoughtlessly there is none more common than the wearing of birds' feathers as ornaments in hats. The coloring is often exquisitely soft and delicate, and we do not think, at first, what these beautiful feathers mean.

In the morning some mother bird sings her sweetest songs under your window as she flies forth to look for food for her nestlings. At night she lies wounded or dead and her little ones must starve alone in the nest. Is the pleasure of wearing a dead bird enough to pay for this suffering?

Perhaps you will say that since the bird is already killed when you buy it, it may as well be in your hat as in the shop window. Now think a moment. You may be sure that when you buy such a bird, another will be shot to take its place in the milliner's show-case. If no woman would buy these feathers, do you suppose that milliners would keep them for sale?

THE HALO.

Think what a price to pay, Faces so bright and gay, Just for a hat!

Flowers unvisited, mornings unsung, Sea-ranges bare of the wings that o'erswung,-- Bared just for that!

Oh, but the shame of it, Oh, but the blame of it, Price of a hat!

Just for a jauntiness brightening the street!

This is your halo, O faces so sweet, DEATH: and for that!

REV. W. C GANNETT.

In "Voices for the Speechless"

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: THE SNOWY HERON.]

THE SNOWY HERON.

One of the greatest sufferers among the bird mothers is the egret, or snowy heron. The pretty, airy plumes which we see on many hats grow on the egret's back, and fall over the sides and tail of the bird. They are most beautiful at the time when the mother bird is raising her brood of little ones. This is the time for the hunter to shoot her, and he finds it easy, because the egret will not readily fly away from her babies.

The little birds starve to death, and in many places there are no egrets left. Every feathery plume in the dainty bonnet means that at least one happy, innocent life has been taken. Do the feathers look quite so pretty to you when you think of all this? Is it comfortable to feel that for the sake of being in the fas.h.i.+on you have been the cause of such distress? If you can, for one moment, put yourself in the place of the mother bird as she lies dying on the gra.s.s and thinking of the little ones that will never see her again, I am sure nothing will induce you to be seen with her beautiful feathers in your hat. No ornament, bought at such a price, is worth the cost.

WINGED FISHERS.

The seagull loves the salt sea and the wild wind. The waves are his cradle. When he wishes to fly, he spreads his long, narrow wings, and the breeze carries him along as if he were a white boat with sails.

Now and then he pounces down upon the water. That is when he catches sight of some s.h.i.+ning fish which he thinks will make him a good dinner.

He is a hungry bird, and, fortunately for us, he is not very particular as to what he eats. He swallows the floating sc.r.a.ps which would soon become unsightly and dangerous if they were left along the sh.o.r.e.

The common gull has a pure white breast, a slate-colored back, and black-tipped wings. Its nest is built of seaweed on some rocky cliff or ledge. As soon as it can scramble out of its nest, the young gull likes to sit on a ledge of rocks, where it looks like a ball of soft, gray down. When hundreds of them are seen sitting on the same cliff, it seems wonderful that the mother birds can find their own children, but they make no mistake. They are devoted and faithful mothers. Often their lives are in danger, and they might easily seek safety for themselves, but they will not leave their helpless birdlings.

The gulls have the same sad story to tell that belongs to all beautiful, soft-hued birds. They are much less numerous than formerly, because sportsmen take advantage of the mother's devotion to kill her and steal her wings. When girls and women consent to wear these feathers in their hats, they forget the pain and terror of the dying birds. Few girls would go so far as to kill a bird. Perhaps not one would harm a mother bird defending her little ones. Yet to wear the soft, pretty wings is to doom another victim to this piteous death.

WHAT THE LITTLE SEAL THINKS.

I am very lonely and hungry. Here I have been, for days, hidden in a cave in the rocks, and I do not dare to come out. Only a little while ago my mother and I were so happy! To lie on the sunny beach, to splash and swim in the salt sea, to nestle close to her soft, warm fur when I was cold and tired,--this was my life.

Then men came in boats and drove away my playmates in a flock to be clubbed and killed. When I ran back to my mother I could not find her, but her beautiful coat had been torn off and thrown upon a pile of skins. My mother had been killed while she was trying to find me. I wonder if any woman would wear my mother's coat if she knew this.

WHAT THE YOUNG SEABIRD THINKS.

There comes that man with a gun! The winter wren has just told me what it means. It seems that women like to wear the feathers of dead birds, and that man is trying to shoot my mother as she comes back to her nest.

I am afraid I shall never see her again.

The wren tells me that people like to adorn themselves with the skins of fur-coated animals. It does seem strange that men and women think that they cannot be well dressed without killing us and wearing our clothes.

WHAT THE BIRDS DO FOR US.

Have you ever thought what the world would be without the birds? A learned Frenchman, named Michelet, said that if it were not for the birds there would be no plant life, no animal life, no life at all upon this earth. Hosts of insects would destroy all plant life, and if there were no plants, no animals could live. The common chickadee destroys in twenty-five days more than a hundred thousand eggs of the cankerworm moth, and the chickadee is one of our smallest birds.

In winter, if you have an apple tree near your home, you can watch the hungry woodp.e.c.k.e.r getting his dinner. He runs up the trunk, digging into the bark for insects and insects' eggs. Almost seventy-five per cent of his food is made up of insects.

Perhaps you have read of the army worm and of the harm it does to gra.s.s and grain. In a single night a green field attacked by this pest is made brown and bare. In 1896 the damage done in Ma.s.sachusetts by this worm was estimated at $200,000. As soon as the birds discover that the army worm is at work, they come flocking from long distances. No farmer could summon helpers so promptly. Kingbirds, phoebe birds, cowbirds, Baltimore orioles, chipping sparrows, robins, English sparrows, meadow larks, crows, golden-winged woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, and quail eat the army worm, but of all these helpers, none is so valuable for this work as the red-winged blackbird and the crow blackbird.