"Bluebird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good news for every one, above or down below, For Master Winsome Bluebird's come to whistle ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... weeks; the snow ran from the brown fields, and melted at length even in the moist crotches under the hemlocks of the northern slopes; the robin and bluebird came, the hillsides were mottled with exquisite shades of green, and the scent of fruit blossom and balm of Gilead was in the air. June came as a maiden and grew into womanhood. But Jethro Bass ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in England, namely, the robin,—the original robin redbreast,—a slight, quick, active bird with an orange front and an olive back, and a bright, musical warble that I caught by every garden, lane, and hedge-row. It suggests our bluebird, and has similar habits and manners, though it is ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... was the first to respond. So eager, so fresh, so exuberant was he after his long winter sleep, that he leaped from his bed and frolicked all over the meadow and played all sorts of curious antics. Then a little bluebird was seen in the hedge one morning. He was calling to ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since shared her affections with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more than ever. It was an era in the history ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... Bluebird Brown-tailed Moth Butterflies Bird's Nest Crow's Foot Chimney Swallows Cockscomb Dove in the Window Duck and Ducklings Four Little Birds Goose Tracks Goose in the Pond Honeycomb Honeycomb Patch Hen and Chickens King's Crows Peacocks and Flowers Spider's Den Shoo Fly ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... in the firs quite suddenly, as though he had thrown reserve to the four winds, a bluebird repeated her "May—May—May" on three notes, high, low, and high again, a little musical stumble of delight. It had begun again—that whistling-away of winter fear ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... there any lack of feathered people. The golden eagle may be seen, and the osprey, hawks, jays, hummingbirds, the mourning dove, and cheery familiar singers—the black-headed grosbeak, robin, bluebird, Townsend's thrush, and many warblers, sailing the sky and enlivening the rocks and bushes through ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... where were clustered the boats, some tied to the piles, some anchored a little way out. "Haines was to send a man to caulk a seam in the Nancy," he muttered. "Whoever he is, he'll have to go in the Bluebird. I'm not going to take another man from the tobacco. What fools women are! But they get their way,—the pretty ones at least." He leaned over ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... rosebush outside on our garden, ev'ry spring it has got new nes', But only wan bluebird is buil' dere, I know her from all de res', An' no matter de far she be flyin' away on de winter tam, Back to her own leetle rosebush she's comin' dere jus' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... slender-waisted brunette, and the former a plump, strutting, little coxcomb, in a mahogany-colored waistcoat. There is nothing here approaching in vivid colors the New England yellow-bird, hang-bird, red-bird, indigo-bird, or even the bluebird. In this, as well as other differences, Nature adjusts the system of compensation which is designed to equalise the conditions ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the Maryland Yellow Throat and the high pitched song of the indigo bunting resounded from the bushes near Glen-Miller park of Richmond, Ind. A cardinal shot across the road like a burning arrow, and his ringing challenge was answered by the softly warbled notes of a bluebird; while down by the spring came the liquid song of the wood thrush, pure, clear, and serene, speaking the soul of the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... 're passin', de golden plover, Dis mornin' I 'm seein' de bluebird's wing, So if not'ing go wrong, de winter 's over, An' not very long till ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... Miller headed up the trail to Bluebird Gulch, Ma felt him coming around the bend below the waterfall a mile across the gorge. She laid down her skinning knife and wiped her hands clean of the blood of the rabbits Jed had brought in earlier in ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael
... when the bluebird comes And builds its nest, singing sweet and clear? When violets peep among blades of grass?— These are the signs ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long
... Robins to greet thee, Hey, little Sweetheart! and May morning, hey! Sunbeam and sing time, Bluebird and wing time, This time is kiss time for sweethearts, ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place. The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the door, and the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came softly ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... and lazy, Had his dwelling far to southward, In the drowsy, dreamy sunshine, In the never-ending Summer. He it was who sent the wood-birds, Sent the robin, the Opechee, Sent the bluebird, the Owaissa, Sent the Shawshaw, sent the swallow, Sent the wild-goose, Wawa, northward, Sent the melons and tobacco, And the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... I went on to the ostensible reason of my visit—the Charterhouse testimonial. He slapped his thighs metaphorically, by way of suggesting the depleted condition of his pockets. "Stony broke, Cumberledge," he murmured; "stony broke! Honour bright! Unless Bluebird pulls off the Prince of Wales's Stakes, I really don't know how I'm to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Meadows and all the Green Forest had heard the news. Peter Rabbit had seen to that. And just as soon as each of the little meadow and forest folks heard it, he hurried out to listen for himself and make sure that it was true. And each, when he heard that sweet voice of Winsome Bluebird, had kicked up his heels ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... little boy eight years old. I want to tell you that papa heard a bluebird sing in a chestnut-tree on January 11. I have six cats and three ducks. One of my cats died last week, and I buried ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... string of twenty neckties (borrowed from Uncle Guy's room) dangling around her waist, over a combination of pink crepe and bluebird pajamas. At the back of her neck, in savage glee, was propped the piano feather duster, the same being somewhat supported by another necktie of Kelly green hue, that ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... the bluebird. "Thank you," I replied, "seeing is believing." "Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will," cried a large, spotted bird. "That," thought I, "is a prize fighter." "Cheat, cheat!" urged a pious-looking cardinal, who evidently mistook me for a gambler. "Don't," roared a bullfrog, who ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... turn 'er loose. And run the damn thing out here right away and show me how it works, and how often you gotta wind it and when. Lucky I didn't bring no passengers down—I was runnin' empty. But I gotta take back a load of Bohunks to the Bluebird this afternoon, and my stage, she's a total wreck. I'll sign papers to-night if ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... passiflora, the vanilla with its intoxicating perfume, the banisteria whose roots seem to have dived into mines of gold and borrowed from thence the color of its petals! Hither the birds of Paradise and Brazilian parrots come to build their nests; here the bluebird and the purple-necked wood-pigeon coo and sing; here, like swarms of bees, thousands of humming-birds of mingled emerald and sapphire, warble and glitter as they suck the nectar from the flowers. This was what you hoped ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... chipmunk in March is as sure a token of the spring as the first bluebird or the first robin, and is quite as welcome. Some genial influence has found him out there in his burrow, deep under the ground, and waked him up, and enticed him forth into the light of day. The red squirrel has been more or less ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... and the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... knew some few birds whose names are familiar to every schoolboy: the Robin, Bluebird, Kingbird, Wild Canary, Woodpecker, Barn-swallow, Wren, Chickadee, Wild Pigeon, Humming-bird, Pewee, so that his list ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Billy Bluebird had a party In an elder tree, But the little black-eyed smarty Didn't ask us to his party Neither ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers, The arbutus under foot, the willow's yellow-green, the blossoming plum and cherry; With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs—the flitting bluebird; For such the scenes the annual play ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... rather see Phoebe building her mud nest than the preacher writing his sermon. I had rather see the big moth emerge from her cocoon—fresh and untouched as a coin that moment from the die—than the most fashionable "coming out" that society ever knew. The first song sparrow or bluebird or robin in spring, or the first hepatica or arbutus or violet, or the first clover or pond-lily in summer—must we demand some mystic password of them? Must we not love them for their own sake, ere they will seem worthy of ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... that of the perching birds, includes all our common song-birds, such as the robin, bluebird, and blackbird, as well as a few larger birds, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... the swing in the locust-tree, Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground, And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three Or four such other boys used to be "Doin' sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round": And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest, And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed, The old ghosts romp through ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... in visiting from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, Their sweet liquidity diluted some By dewy orchard spaces ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... Pan is dead; His pipe hangs mute beside the river; Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music's airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him;— The Genius of the wood ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... maiden Spring? Who heard her footfall, swift and light As fairy-dancing in the night? Who guessed what happy dawn would bring The flutter of her bluebird's wing, The blossom of her mayflower-face To brighten every shady place? One morning, down the village street, "Oh, here am I," we heard her sing,— And none had been awake to greet The coming ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... of his hibernaculum, evidently thinking it was spring. A copperhead snake was killed here about the same date; caterpillars did not seem to retire, as they usually do, but came forth every warm day. The note of the bluebird was heard nearly every week all winter, and occasionally that of the robin. Such open winters make one fear that his appetite for spring will be blunted when spring really does come; but he usually finds that the April days have ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... perfect little gem, with plumage that was black, purple, and turquoise, and brilliant scarlet feet. Two of the birds which Cherrie and Miller procured were of extraordinary nesting habits. One, a nunlet, in shape resembles a short-tailed bluebird. It is plumbeous, with a fulvous belly and white tail coverts. It is a stupid little bird, and does not like to fly away even when shot at. It catches its prey and ordinarily acts like a rather dull flycatcher, perching on some dead tree, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... side was gone, and gladly I drove away from the mighty smells and sounds of that unfortunate mass of seething life, subjected to the will of a dozen men, Van Anden the worst of the lot. And as we went silently through the sweet cool air, crisp as an October leaf, where a bluebird was twittering a wing-free song on the poplar yonder, where silver-turned willows were gently swaying, and a jolly chipmunk was rippling from log to stone, I wondered whether the Newport girl had really done so wrong ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... is clear, The darting swallows soar and sing. And from the stately elms I hear The bluebird ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... are like two baskets or bundles of traits from which the child takes its traits at random. In the wonderful play of Maeterlinck's, called the "Bluebird," we are taken to the "land before birth," where the children are waiting to be born, having selected their parents to be. Of course, this is only a pleasant fancy, like the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes to children to choose good grandparents, but it is a useful fancy which ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... lovely moment of the year. All the trees were putting forth new leaves, leaves so young, so tiny as yet, that one could see the fowls of the air when they lodged in the branches—no small privilege, for now the orange oriole, and the bluebird, and the primrose-coloured finch, were here, there, and everywhere; and more rarely the scarlet tanager. A few days before and they had not come; a few days more and larger leaves would hide them perfectly. Just at this time, too, along the roadsides, big hawthorn shrubs and wild plum were ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... court robbery and even bodily harm. In these days of comparative safety it is difficult to realize the influence that abundant illumination has had in increasing the safety of life and property. Maeterlinck in his poetical drama, "The Bluebird," appropriately has made Light the faithful companion of mankind. The Palace of Night, into which Light is not permitted to enter, is the abode of many evils. Thus the poet has played upon the primitive instincts of the impressiveness of light ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Survived the Flight and swam the Flood, And wakes the wish in youngest blood To tread the forfeit Paradise, And feed once more the exile's eyes; And ever when the happy child In May beholds the blooming wild, And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, 'Onward,' he cries, 'your baskets bring,— In the next field is air more mild, And o'er yon hazy crest ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... arrived at the village of Yoquibo (yoki bluebird; ivo mesa: bluebird on the mesa). Here I had to stop for a few days to reconnoitre the road. I was told that the grass had been burned by the Indians almost as far as the ranches of Guachochic, our main objective point. The Indians at that time (May) always burn the grass, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... man's biography, etc. Emerson wrote in his journal: "Long ago I wrote of gifts and neglected a capital example. John Thoreau, Jr. [who, like his brother Henry, was a lover of nature] one day put a bluebird's box on my barn,—fifteen years ago it must be,—and there it still is, with every summer a melodious family in it adorning the place and singing its praises. There's a gift for you which cost the giver no money, but nothing which he bought could ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... "Nashke![20]—see!—I shake my ringlets; On the earth the warm rain falleth, And the flowers look up like children Glad-eyed from their mother's bosom. Lo my voice recalls the robin, Brings the bobolink and bluebird, And the woods are full of music. With my breath I melt their fetters, And the brooks ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... have especially beautiful songs are the Thrushes, which include the Robin and the Bluebird, the finest singer in this family probably being the Hermit Thrush. In the Southern States there is no more popular singer among the birds than the Mockingbird. But it should be remembered that ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... only one of them white and inexplicably strange. It has been proclaimed further back in this treatise that there is only one witch in every wood. And to illustrate further, there is but one scarlet letter in Hawthorne's story of that name, but one wine-cup in all of Omar, one Bluebird in ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... well-educated female architects. The planning and arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would anybody think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely by Mr. Blue, without the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the murmur of bluebirds, which came each year to live in the old trees about Storm. She wondered why the bluebird should have been taken as a symbol of happiness. There is nothing more plaintive in nature than its nesting-song, a cadence of little dropping minor notes, which Kate, grown fanciful in her idleness, translated ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... sir! I'll give the orders." And Patty looked as wise and dignified as a small bluebird ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... the second class feed by preference on fruits, nuts, and grain. The bluebird, robin, wood thrush, mocking-bird, catbird, chickadee, cedar-bird, meadow lark, oriole, jay, crow, and woodpecker belong to this group. These birds never fail to perform a service for us by ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... there— S'lazy, 'at you peek and peer Through the wavin' leaves above Like a feller 'at's in love And don't know it, ner don't kere! Ever'thing you hear and see Got some sort o' interest— Maybe find a bluebird's nest Tucked up there conveenently Fer the boy 'at's apt to be Up some other apple-tree! Watch the swallers skootin' past 'Bout as peert as you could ast; Er the Bob-white raise and whiz Where some ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... to swell; when the ice breaks up on the river and the first sea-gulls come prospecting northward. Whatever the date—the first or the middle or the last of March—when these signs appear, then I know spring is at hand. Her first birds—the bluebird, the song sparrow, the robin, the red-shouldered starling—are here or soon will be. The crows have a more confident caw, the sap begins to start in the sugar maple, the tiny boom of the first bee is heard, the ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats its throbbing drum. The squirrel leaps among the boughs, And chatters in his leafy house. The oriole flashes by; and, look! Into the mirror of the brook, Where the vain bluebird trims his coat, Two ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... and is touched into exquisite rose and gold by the morning sun; the frosted leaves which turn to crimson and gold—God's silent witnesses that sorrow, disappointment and loss may bring out the deeper beauties of the soul; the flash of a bluebird's wing as he rides gaily down the wind into the sunlit valley. All these are messages to you and me that all is well—letters from home, good ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... intense blue is the CLOSED, BLIND, or BOTTLE GENTIAN (G. Andrewsii), more truly the color of the "male bluebird's back," to which Thoreau likened the paler fringed gentian. Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year; nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased, and Opechancanough entered the hollow alone. An eagle feather was thrust through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, that was neither painted nor pricked into strange figures, hung a triple row of pearls; his mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and sleek as satin. The face of this barbarian was dark, cold, and impassive as death. Behind that changeless mask, as in a safe retreat, the supersubtle devil that was the man might plot destruction and plan the laying ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... piped a bluebird, "don't leave me out! I saw the snow that lay round about." "Yes," chirped a snowbird, "that may be true; But I've seen it ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... sparrow flits to the top of a bush, clears his throat with sharp chirps and shouts as loud as he can: "Hip! Hip! Hip! Hurrah—!" Even more boreal visitors feel the new influence, and tree and fox sparrows warble sweetly. But the bluebird's note will always be spring's dearest herald. When this soft, mellow sound floats from the nearest fence post, it seems to thaw something out of our ears; from this instant winter seems on the defensive; the ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... as now we sail the sea. The thing looks simple enough to me; And, if you doubt it, Hear how Darius reasoned about it. "The birds can fly, an' why can't I? Must we give in," says he, with a grin, "That the bluebird an' phoebe Are smarter'n we be? Jest fold our hands an' see the swaller An' blackbird an' catbird beat us holler? Does the little, chatterin', sassy wren, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? Jest show me that! Ur prove't the bat Hez got more brains than's in my ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... slowly so that they might catch and hold the sunlight in their amber depths. Beyond the creek, and through a gap in the foot-hills, the prairie stretched for miles—blue and green with oats and wheat and alfalfa. Now and then a mountain bluebird was lost to sight among the larkspur, and always a cloud of tiny blue ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... a boy, and was very soon back with the glasses. We quickly made out that it was indeed an owl,—the pigmy owl, as it turned out,—not much larger than a bluebird. I think the President was as pleased as if we had bagged some big game. He had never ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... time. Now when it was noised abroad that whoever besought Glooskap could obtain the desire of his heart, there were three men who said among themselves, "Let us seek the Master." So they left their home in the early spring when the bluebird first sang, and walked till the fall frosts, and then into winter, and ever on till the next midsummer. And having come to a small path in a great forest, they followed it, till they came out by a very beautiful river; so fair a ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... worms that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and apples and roses. We will give you our best songs, and make the spring more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. Every June morning when you go out into the field, Oriole and Bluebird and Blackbird and Bobolink will fly after you, and make the day more delightful to you. And when you go home tired after sundown Vesper Sparrow will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit down on your porch after dark, Fifebird and Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush will ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... beginning to lengthen, the sun rose earlier and staid up longer. Now and then a bluebird was heard twittering a welcome to the coming spring. As for the robins, they were as pert and busy as usual. The little streams were beginning to find their way out of their icy prison slowly and with trembling, as if they feared old winter might take a step and catch them, ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... you will be my True-Love, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll ask a little bluebird To ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... the hillock where she had so often scattered flowers. A squirrel leaped and frisked in the boughs above her, and she startled a rabbit from the thick grass and fallen yellow leaves: but neither these, nor the twitter of gossiping orioles, nor the harsh, hungry cry of a bluebird told her a syllable of all that had ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... or fin or pinion, We soon or late should navigate The azure as now we sail the sea. The thing looks simple enough to me; And, if you doubt it, Hear how Darius reasoned about it: "The birds can fly, an' why can't I? Must we give in," says he with a grin, "'T the bluebird an' phoebe are smarter'n we be? Jest fold our hands, an' see the swaller An' blackbird an' catbird beat us holler? Does the leetle chatterin', sassy wren, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? Jest show me that! er prove 't bat Hez ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... The bluebird chants, from the elm's long branches, A hymn to welcome the budding year. The south wind wanders from field to forest, And softly whispers, "The ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... thrush that carols at the dawn of day From the green steeples of the piny wood; The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray, Flooding with melody the neighborhood; Linnet and meadow lark, and all the throng That dwell in nests, and have ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... been given me to interfere; I was on no such intimate terms with Boyd; and as for Lana, she heeded Mrs. Bleecker's cautious sermons as lightly as a bluebird, drifting, heeds the soft air that thrills with ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Birds Blackbird Bluebird Bobolink Bullfinch Cock Canary Crow Cuckoo Eagle Falcon Goose Hawk Humming-bird Lark Mocking-bird Nightingale Owl Robin Summer ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... specifications. It is the lesser poets who trip most over their facts. Thus a New England poet speaks of "plucking the apple from the pine," as if the pineapple grew upon the pine-tree. A Western poet sings of the bluebird in a strain in which every feature and characteristic of the bird is lost; not one trait of the bird is faithfully set down. When the robin and the swallow come, he says, the bluebird hies him to some mossy old wood, where, amid the deep seclusion, he ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... they walked, she chattered her best to amuse the sombre mind, so lately uprooted from old habits and ways of life into a mode of existence more or less distasteful. The birds aided her effort with a variety of foreign music. Woodpigeon, bobolink, bluebird, oriole, cooed and trilled and warbled from the bush all around. The black squirrel, fat, sleek, jolly with good living of summer fruits, scampered about the boughs with erect shaggy tail, looking a very caricature upon care, as he stowed away hazel-nuts for the frosty future. Already ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... were Little Buffalo Calf, a boy of eleven years; Eyes-in-the-Water, his sister, a girl of nine; Fine Bow, a cousin of these, aged ten, and Bluebird, his sister, who was ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... first bluebird warbles they begin to work in their flower and vegetable garden, and from then until it is time to cover the verbena-beds in the fall I rarely pass without seeing one or more of them, with sunbonnet on head and hoe in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... close to the eye, as is their liberated murmur to the ear. All across this broad interval the teams are ploughing. The grass in the meadow seems all to have grown green since yesterday. The blackbirds jangle in the oak, the robin is perched upon the elm, the song-sparrow on the hazel, and the bluebird on the apple-tree. There rises a hawk and sails slowly, the stateliest of airy things, a floating dream of long and languid summer-hours. But as yet, though there is warmth enough for a sense of luxury, there is coolness enough for exertion. No tropics can offer such a burst ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... and wondered, after she left the girls, if that were not the reason for Migwan's not planning to go to the matinee. She remembered Migwan's saying some time before that she wanted very much to see "The Bluebird" when it came. She knew it would never do to offer to pay Migwan's way; Migwan was too proud for that. She lay awake a long time over it and finally formulated a plan. The next morning when Migwan came to school she saw a conspicuous ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... in the sun, The morning widens o'er the world: The bluebird's song is just begun, And down the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in, but at which my mind had to conceal a smile and turn its consciousness quickly elsewhere, to prevent an obtrusive reality from dimming this last addition to the picture. The gentle, unmistakable, velvet warble of a bluebird came over the hillside, again and again; and so completely absorbed and lulled was I by the gradual obsession of being in the midst of a northern scene, that the sound caused not the slightest excitement, even ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... form to little Lucy. He could not help it. It was during the morning intermission, and he came upon her seated all alone under a hawthorn hedge, studying her arithmetic anxiously. She was in blue, as usual, and a very perky blue bow sat on her soft, dark hair, like a bluebird. She glanced up at Jim from ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... melancholy croaker, Zachariah. You see naught but the buzzards, when all about you are the newly come birds of spring, the bluebird, the robin, and the thrush. Soon the meadow lark will be in the fields, and the young ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... tree-tops high." Thus they talked, but soon the teepee grew like summer, strangely warm, And the old man's head dropped listless o'er a soundly-sleeping form. High the sun rode in the heavens, and a bluebird, pert and trim, Called out, "Say-ee, I am thirsty;" and the rivers flowed for him. As the old man slept, the maiden passed her hand above his head, And he smaller grew and smaller, till, all mortal substance sped, But a ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... Valley, and the flicker and, of course, the carpenter woodpecker, that lays up large stores of acorns in the bark of trees; wrens also, with a few brown and gray linnets, and flocks of the arctic bluebird, making lively pictures among the snow-laden mistletoe bushes. Flocks of pigeons are often seen, and about six species of ducks, as the river is never wholly frozen over. Among these are the mallard and the beautiful ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... can't keep still." She looked like a bluebird, in her blue dress and sash, with a white chip bonnet, blue ribbon and blue feather, and Milly thought there was not another ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... enough to me; And if you doubt it, Hear how Darius reasoned about it. "The birds can fly an' why can't I? Must we give in," says he with a grin. "That the bluebird an' ph[oe]be Are smarter'n we be? Jest fold our hands an' see the swaller An' blackbird an' catbird beat us holler? Doos the little chatterin', sassy wren, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? Just show me that! Ur prove 't the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... to git the bluebird, and the bummelybee was a-flyin, and a-buzzin' so, it made such a 'straction the snake couldn't git fixed fur to chawm the ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... of the most difficult colours to place in the garden. In view of this fact it is not strange that it is a comparatively unusual hue in the flower world and a very rare one among our neighbourly eastern birds, the only three that wear it conspicuously being the bluebird, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... prettiest winter suit! She is so warm and lovely in it—and a set of white furs; she is a bluebird with a golden crest. After she was dressed the first time Miss Prudence looked down at her and said, as if excusing the expense to herself: 'But I must keep the child warm—and it is my own money.' I ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... to meet Echo, but so far he never had. He thought she must be something like the Star-Lady, whom he had met, only not quite so bright. Her voice sounded a little sadder, too, like the Bluebird's in the Fall when he says "Goodbye" to the fields and flies to the South. Often he had run after Echo, but he never could catch up with her, nor even see a glimpse of her silver and green dress. She always played Hide-and-Seek with him, and he ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... are most friendly with man, and most helpful to him in his farming and fruit-growing business. The quail is about the only game bird that the cat affects seriously, and to it the cat is very destructive. It is the robin, catbird, thrush, bluebird, dove, woodpecker, chickadee, phoebe, tanager and other birds of the lawn, the garden and orchard that afford good hunting for sly and ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... feared that with numbers so small they could not possibly compete with their enemies and with whatever untoward circumstances should be their lot. But there is room in this environment for a definite number of bluebirds. When this number was suddenly reduced the chances to make a bluebird's living were so wondrously multiplied that young bluebirds had such an opportunity in life as their fellows had not had for many long years. Accordingly they thrived as never before, and, of their ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... learned to hear its soft crooning lullaby. The wind rustled in the pine trees with a ghostly, mysterious sound. From somewhere in the woods came a mournful cry that sent the chills up and down her spine. It was only a whippoorwill, but Gladys did not know a whippoorwill from a bluebird. Then the frogs in a distant pool began their concert. "Blub!" "Blub!" "Knee-deep!" "Better go round!" "Knee-deep!" "Better go round!" "Skeel!" "Skeek!" "Skeel!" "Skeek!" "Blub!" "Glub!" "Chralk!" Gladys's eyes started out of her head at the unearthly noises. Her nerves were just about ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... woods, that drip with all their eaves, Her mad hair blown about her, loud she goes Singing and calling to the naked trees; And straight the oilets of the little leaves Open their eyes in wonder, rows on rows, And the first bluebird bugles to ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... chick!' but I saw that their honest little hearts were troubled, and I said again: 'Confound it! Let's go in and hear what the milliner has to say.' Well, the long and short of it was that the milliner tried a bunch of forget-me-nots over the bluebird that we all agreed was a thousand times better, and that if it were substituted would only cost three dollars more, and we took our Easter-egg chick home in a blaze of glory, the children carrying the bandbox by the ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... nearby bush, poured forth a tumbling torrent of silvery melody. Behind him, on the fence, a meadow lark answered with liquid music. About him on every side, in the soft sunlight, the bluebirds were flitting here and there, twittering cheerily the while over their bluebird tasks. And a woodpecker, hard at work in the orchard shade, made himself known by the din ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... sandy-complexioned bird that prowls through the woods, uttering its harsh, uncanny note and waging fierce warfare upon its fellows. The exquisite of the family, and the braggart of the orchard, is the kingbird, a bully that loves to strip the feathers off its more timid neighbors such as the bluebird, that feeds on the stingless bees of the hive, the drones, and earns the reputation of great boldness by teasing large hawks, while it gives a wide berth ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... to come true, and as Polly walked through the fields, heavy and golden with the ripened grain, the Irish buoyancy of her temperament asserting itself, made each object appear an omen of good luck—the sight of a bluebird meant happiness of course, the flight of a carrier pigeon the arrival of a longed-for message. Weary finally of thinking delightful things Polly fell to reciting poetry aloud. As a small girl and in spite of her mother's and sister's protests she had made up her mind to be an actress and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... the milky flood without hearing any cry from the shore or seeing any one who took note of their departure. The pellucid and comforting light of the blinded sun grew warmer; the hum of industry in the town behind rose cheerfully upon the quiet air, and as the calling of the April bluebird in the fields grew more faint, the splash of the oars and the whirr of the gray water-fowl began to be accompanied by a low distant ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... did. And she didn't have any trouble keeping from being disappointed, after that. For, just as Avrillia had hinted, the toast, in spite of its appearance, was really Angel Food cake; and as she ate it, Sara found at her elbow a bottle marked "Birdsong Wine—Bluebird." As the Gunki were all eating, they couldn't wait on her, so she poured it into her glass herself; and when she had taken a sip, it tasted just like April! You may imagine that, from that time on, Sara had no further anxiety about what she was to eat, and ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... events to occur, the young couple, true lovers of the simple life, took upon themselves the vows which united them until "death itself should part." The rustle of the leaves in the treetop murmured nature's sweet benediction, while the bluebird, the robin, and the ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... swept down the valleys, the myriad yellow twigs of the brookside willows turned green, a cheery piping rose from the ponds, the last gleam of snow passed from the farthest hills, the bluebird sang, the harrow followed the plough, Ruth's crocuses shone above the greening sod, and down by the old mill-pool and on the steep hillside beyond it she and Isabel gathered arbutus, anemones, and the yellow violet. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... its tenderness would dimple exquisitely, with every dimple a flower. Mother Earth, moistening the bare brown fields for the plough with a capricious tear or so for the banished winter, was beginning again. And so was he. Hope swelled wistfully within him like song in the throat of the bluebird and sap in the trees. With the sun warm upon his face and the gladness of spring in his veins, he sang with Pippa that "God's in his Heaven, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... going to try to tell you what your letter meant to me. It was the bluebird's song in the spring, the cool breeze in the desert, sunlight after storm—it was everything that stands for satisfaction after a season of discomfort ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... azure-feathered arrow From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet The bluebird, springing light and narrow, Sings in flight, with ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her young one in the shaded street of a large town. She had captured a cicada or harvest-fly, and, after bruising it awhile on the ground, flew with it to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... harbingers are too subtle for the eye and ear. Some must have the flowering crocus, the wood-starring dogwood, the voice of bluebird—even so gross a reminder as the farewell handshake of the retiring buckwheat and oyster before they can welcome the Lady in Green to their dull bosoms. But to old earth's choicest kin there come straight, sweet messages from his newest bride, telling ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... a-here, boy," exploded Perry, in open exasperation, "as I said in the first place, this ain't in your class. 'T ain't no pink cloud sailin' in the sky, nor a bluebird singin' in a blackb'rry bush. An' you might 'play it'—as you call it—till doomsday, an' 't wouldn't do no good—though I'm free ter confess that your playin' of them 'ere other things sounds real pert an' chirky at times; but 't won't do ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... wonder and fright. Her grandmother contemptuously passed through the kitchen door and emerged on the step outside, but Simone opened the door and left it open behind her. "What was that?" she asked Nina. "Was it a bluebird?" ...
— The Putnam Tradition • Sonya Hess Dorman
... by a window that he might enjoy the prospect also. A charming winter outlook it was, brilliant with light and gemmed with innumerable crystals. To Amy's delight, she heard for the first time the soft, down-like notes of the bluebird. At first they seemed like mere "wandering voices in the air," sweet, plaintive, and delicate as the wind-swayed anemone. Then came a soft rustle of wings, and a bird darted downward, probably from the eaves, but seemingly it was a bit of the sky that had taken form and substance. He ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... difficult to note the exact order in which the different birds successively begin their parts in this performance; but the bluebird, whose song is only a short, mellow warble, is heard nearly at the same time with the robin, and the song sparrow joins them soon after with his brief but finely modulated strain. The different species follow rapidly, one after another, in the chorus, until ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey |
