among them the dramas of history. Yesterday, in the secret recess
of a walnut, I saw the beginning of the Trojan war. Last week
I witnessed the battle of Actium fought out in mid-air. And down
among my hedges--indeed, openly in my very barn-yard--there is a
perfectly scandalous Salt Lake City.

And while I am watching the birds, they are watching me. Not a little
fop among them, having proposed and been accepted, but perches on
a limb, and has the air of putting his hands mannishly under his
coattails and crying out at me, "Hello! Adam, what were you made
for?" "You attend to your business, and I'll attend to mine," I
answer. "You have one May; I have twenty-five!" He didn't wait
to hear. He caught sight of a pair of clear brown eyes peeping
at him out of a near tuft of leaves, and sprang thither with open
arms and the sound of a kiss.

But if I have twenty-five Mays remaining, are not some Mays gone?
Ah, well! Better a single May with the right mate than the full
number with the wrong. And where is she--the right one? If she
ever comes near my yard and answers my whistle, I'll know it; and
then I'll teach these popinjays in blue coats and white pantaloons
what Adam was made for.

But the wrong one--there's the terror! Only think of so composite
a phenomenon as Mrs. Walters, for instance, adorned with limp
nightcap and stiff curl-papers, like garnishes around a leg of
roast mutton, waking up beside me at four o'clock in the morning
as some gray-headed love-bird of Madagascar, and beginning to chirp
and trill in an ecstasy!