and there was a great fluttering and scattering of the pretenders.
And then occurred more than I had looked for. The stone had
hardly struck the brush when what looked like a tongue of vermilion
flame leaped forth near by, and, darting across, stuck itself out
of sight in the green vines on the opposite slope. A male and
a female cardinal flew up also, balancing themselves on sprays of
the blackberry, and uttering excitedly their quick call-notes. I
whistled to the male as I had been used, and he recognized me
by shooting up his crest and hopping to nearer twigs with louder
inquiry. All at once, as if an idea had struck him, he sprang
across to the spot where the first frightened male had disappeared.
I could still hear him under the vines, and presently he reappeared
and flew up into a locust-tree on the farther edge of the basin,
followed by the other. What had taken place or took place then I
do not know; but I wished he might be saying: "My son, that man
over there is the one who was very good to your mother and me last
winter, and who owns the tree you were born in. I have warned
you, of course, never to trust Man; but I would advise you, when
you have found your sweetheart, to give he a trial, and take her
to his cedar-trees."

If he said anything like this, it certainly had a terrible effect
of the son; for, having mounted rapidly to the tree-top, he clove
the blue with his scarlet wings as though he were flying from death.
I lost sight of him over a corn-field. One fact pleased me: the
father retuned to his partner under the briers, for he is not of
the lower sort who forget the mother when the children are reared.
They hold faithfully together during the ever more silent, ever more
shadowy autumn days; his warming breast is close to hers through
frozen winter nights; and if they both live to see another May she