picket gate opening upon the Gwynnes' little garden sat a robin, his
head thrown back to give full throat to the song that was like to burst
his heart, monotonous, unceasing, rapturous. On the door step of the
Gwynnes' house, arrested on the threshold by the robin's song, stood the
Gwynne boy of ten years, his eager face uplifted, himself poised like a
bird for flight.

"Law-r-ence," clear as a bird call came the voice from within.

"Mo-th-er," rang the boy's voice in reply, high, joyous and shrill.

"Ear-ly! Remember!"

"Ri-ght a-way af-ter school. Good-bye, mo-ther, dear," called the boy.

"W-a-i-t," came the clear, birdlike call again, and in a moment the
mother came running, stood beside the boy, and followed his eye to the
robin on the poplar tree. "A brave little bird," she said. "That is
the way to meet the day, with a brave heart and a bright song. Goodbye,
boy." She kissed him as she spoke, giving him a slight pat on the
shoulder. "Away you go."

But the boy stood fascinated by the bird so gallantly facing his day.
His mother's words awoke in him a strange feeling. "A brave heart and a
bright song"--so the knights in the brave days of old, according to his
Stories of the Round Table, were wont to go forth. In imitation of the
bird, the boy threw back his head, and with another cheery good-bye to
his mother, sprang clear of the steps and ran down the grass edged path,
through the gate and out onto the village street. There he stood first
looking up the country road which in the village became a street. There