Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird by Virginia Sharpe Patterson
page 60 of 121 (49%)
page 60 of 121 (49%)
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approach. As she bowled along the friend asked enthusiastically: "Is
it not splendid?" The rider called back to her: "It is grand! It is almost as if I were flying. I know now how a bird feels." Think of comparing the sensation produced by moving that heavy iron machine, with the rider but three feet from the ground, to the exhilaration felt by a bird spurning the earth and soaring on delicate wing through the fields of heaven! It was truly laughable! Our amusement was cut short, however, when we noticed that the lady's hat was decorated with a dead dove. "Can we never get away from this millinery exhibition of death?" I exclaimed in horror. "No," said my mother sorrowfully. "The god, Fashion, I told you of has his slaves all over the land. We will find them wherever we go, north, south, east, and west. No town is too small, no neighborhood too remote, but there will be found women ready to carry out his cruel laws." Had we not been haunted by this vision of death which we were constantly meeting wherever women were congregated, we might have been happy in the fair land of rose blossoms and magnolias where we now sojourned. The air was soft and balmy, and the atmosphere filled us with a serene, restful languor quite new to those who had been accustomed to the brisker habits of a colder clime. Besides the birds there were many human visitors from the North spending the winter |
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