(I have a pair in my garden every year), it would have left me a sore
place in my mind for weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back
to the mansuetude they showed to the early voyagers, and before
(forgive the involuntary pun) they had grown accustomed to man
and knew his savage ways. And they repay your kindness with a
sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed contempt. I have made
a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the Puritan way with the
natives, which converted them to a little Hebraism and a great deal
of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me (as most
of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,--a much
better weapon than a gun. I would not, if i could, convert them
from their pretty pagan ways. The only one I sometimes have
savage doubts about is the red squirrel. I *think* he oologizes. I
*know* he eats cherries (we counted five of them at one time in a
single tree, the stones pattering down like the sparse hail that
preludes a storm), and that he gnaws off the small end of pears to
get at the seeds. He steals the corn from under the noses of my
poultry. But what would you have? He will come down upon the
limb of the tree I am lying under till he is within a yard of me. He
and his mate will scurry up and down the great black-walnut for my
diversion, chattering like monkeys. Can I sign his death-warrant
who has tolerated me about his grounds so long? Not I. Let them
steal, and welcome. I am sure I should, had I had the same bringing
up and the same temptation. As for the birds, I do not believe there
is one of them but does more good than harm; and of how many
featherless bipeds can this be said?