"Bluebird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I could just be idle all day today," Anne told a bluebird, who was singing and swinging on a willow bough, "but a schoolma'am, who is also helping to bring up twins, can't indulge in laziness, birdie. How sweet you are singing, little bird. You are just putting the feelings of my heart into song ever so much better ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... little girl listen to a pewee twittering in a thorn-bush and the lusty call of a robin from an apple-tree. A bluebird flew over-head with a merry chirp—its wistful note of autumn long since forgotten. These were the first birds and flowers, he said, and June, knowing them only by sight, must know the name of each and the reason for that name. So that Hale found himself walking the woods with ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... is bright,—the air is clear, The darting swallows soar and sing, And from the stately elms I hear The bluebird prophesying Spring. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... here—bright, singing birds, wide adventurous rivers, innumerable streams, the squirrel in the wood and the bracken, the wildcat stealing through the undergrowth, the lizard glittering by the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, the plaint of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the golden flash of the oriole, the honk of the wild geese overhead, the whirr of the mallard from the sedge. And, more than all, a human voice declaring by its joy in song that not only God looks upon the world and finds it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... autumn, and passed, and the winter—yet Gabriel came not; Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bluebird Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not. But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was wafted Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom. Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... and more than any, a lifting sense of relief, freedom. The air was light, cool, and invigorating. There was a pleasant crunch of dry dusty cinders beneath his feet. And then he saw a venturesome bluebird come darting across the open fields to the west and perch for a moment on the top strand of the barbed-wire fence of the Plow Works, a few yards ahead of him. It sat there swaying and watching him and, as he approached nearer, it took wing and darted across the Plow Company's ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... 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 Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... first a Shakespeare drama and then a modern play. Each act is cast separately, so that all the girls may have a chance to take part, and in this way we read "Twelfth night," "Romeo and Juliet," "The taming of the Shrew," "Macbeth," "The bluebird," "The scarcecrow," and "Cyrano ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... days were 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 ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... dey '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 we ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... says that the bluebird is almost extinct in his section of country. The writer, though a frequent visitor to the fields and woods, has succeeded in seeing only one pair of these beautiful birds in two seasons, where they were abundant a few years ago, when almost every orchard bore a good crop ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... which the lily bloom lay slain, Like some red wound dripped by the garden rails, On which the sullen slug left slimy trails— Meseemed the sun would never shine again. Then in the drench, long, loud and full of cheer,— A skyey herald tabarded in blue,— A bluebird bugled ... and at once a bow Was bent in heaven, and I seemed to hear God's sapphire spaces crystallizing through The ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... 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 seen ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... turf of good old Garrard, Now in sight, perchance in hearing, Of the birds and beasts and reptiles, Roaming wild and roaming lonely, In the groves of fair Lancaster. Now in sight, perchance in hearing Of the melancholy plover, Of the bluebird's thrilling whistle, Of the redbird's gentle chirping, Of the blackbird's noisy chatter, Of the whippoorwill's soft pleading, And the ringdove's tender cooing. All these sounds, I trow, were welcome, To the ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... he already 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 was ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... myself a stranger indeed when I reached this pleasant spot, and found that even the birds were unfamiliar. No robin or bluebird greeted me on my arrival; no cheerful song-sparrow tuned his little pipe for my benefit; no phoebe shouted the beloved name from the peak of the barn. Everything was strange. One accustomed to the birds of our Eastern States ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Creator ordained such 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 thrush ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... 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 ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... fire 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 but ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... in Yosemite Valley. Think how forlorn and out of place a robin would seem in the Grand Canon! What would he do there? There is no turf for him to inspect, and there are no trees for him to perch on. I should as soon expect to find him amid the pyramids of Egypt, or amid the ruins of Karnak. The bluebird was in the Yosemite also, and the water-ouzel haunted ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... and the 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
... a 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 ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along Main Street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the bluebird, the swan song of the Blue Point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N. J., the regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the pond near Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt of the Drug ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... 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, ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... the 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 on ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... 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
... Long she lies in wait, Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, With one great gush of blossoms storms the world. A week ago the Sparrow was divine; The Bluebird, shifting his light load of song From post to post along the cheerless fence, Was as a rhymer ere the poet came; But now, O rapture! sunshine winged and voiced, Pipe blown through by the warm, wild breath ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... a bird of which you can make a pet in your mind, as you may of the chickadee, for instance, or the bluebird, or the hermit thrush. He does not lend himself naturally to such imaginary endearments. But it is pleasant to have him on one's daily beat. I should count it one compensation for having to live in Florida instead ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... waned, and the sun came from his lodge like a painted warrior. The air grew warm and pleasant, and the bluebird and the robin sang on the ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... nostril. Farther north the spring was less advanced, only little leaves on the trees, and for flowers a carpet, sometimes extending for miles, of creamy-white spring-beauties, streaked with rosy pink, laid down for Bourbon's feet to tread upon; and for birds the modest song-sparrow and bluebird, earliest harbingers ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the gentleman, "that you know this is not the home of your favorite bird. You never see them at liberty and flying from tree to tree, as you do the robin or bluebird." ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... the Green Meadows rose the clear lilt of Carol the Meadow Lark, and among the alders just where the Laughing Brook ran into the Smiling Pool a flood of happiness was pouring from the throat of Little Friend the Song Sparrow. Winsome Bluebird's sweet, almost plaintive, whistle seemed to fairly float in the air, so that it was hard to say just where it did come from, and in the top of the Big Hickory-tree, Welcome Robin was singing as if his heart were bursting ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... 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
... evidence to warrant a similar resource in our cow-bird, though the inference would often appear irresistible, did we not know that Wilson actually saw the cow-bird in the act of laying in the diminutive nest of a red-eyed vireo, and also in that of the bluebird. ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... fluttered for an instant beyond the Doric columns, and he had wondered idly if it meant Virginia, and if she were still the pretty little simpleton of six months ago. At the thought of her he threw back his head and whistled gayly into the threatening sky, so gayly that a bluebird flying across the road hovered round him in the air. The joy of living possessed him at the moment, a mere physical delight in the circulation of his blood, in the healthy beating of his pulses. Old things which he had half forgotten appealed to him suddenly with all the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... I 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 such ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... 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, indigo bird, and ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... He himself was invulnerable as he appeared before these monsters, for the reason that he always buried his veins near a tree before attacking them. After he had killed them all, he and his younger brother, Tubadzischi{COMBINING BREVE}ni, quarrelled. The Bluebird revealed to the latter the spot where Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nezgani kept his veins buried, so he sought them out and shot arrows into them, thus killing him. Other myths relate how Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nezgani ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... morning a bluebird was singing outside of the window: she tried to mimic him before she was out of bed, and sang scraps of songs to herself as she dressed. The captain heard her in his room below, but pretended to be asleep when she came down ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... 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
... haven't any stated luncheon or supper time for doing it. They are very informal. One time is as good as another, and the oftener the merrier. If Katy doesn't keep very quiet and demure, like her leafy background, whist! and Father Robin or Mother Bluebird has a ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... dyspepsy from eatin' too much molasses! I'd ruther trust a hen-hawk with a flock of patridges than to trust Betsey Malcolm with your affairs. I ha'n't walked behind you from meetin' and seed her head a bobbin' like a bluebird's and her eyes a blazin an' all that, fer nothin'. Like as not, Betsey Malcolm's more nor half your trouble in ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... False indeed is this thy Prattle, All thy words are full or evil, Fallen from thy tongue of mischief From the lips of one unworthy. Excellent the hero 's young bride, Best of all in Sariola, Like the, strawberry in summer, Like the daisy from the meadow, Like the cuckoo from the forest, Like the bluebird from the aspen, Like the redbreast from the heather, Like the martin. from the linden; Never couldst thou find in Ehstland Such a virgin as this daughter, Such a graceful beauteous maiden, With such dignity of Carriage, With such ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... listen to the love-call of a chickadee, over and over the three notes, one long and two short a whole tone lower. I answered him, he replied, and we played our little game for two or three minutes, till he came close and detected the fraud. Then a bluebird flashed through the orchard, a jay screamed, as I bent to my toil again. Beside me were the hotbed frames, the glasses newly washed, the winter bedding of leaves removed, and behind them last year's contents rotted into rich ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... brilliant 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 to contemplate, poor Selkirk! and ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... minerals, and would like to exchange specimens with any one. I would like very much to have some birds' eggs from the North. I send a list of eggs which have all been found in the Georgia woods: jaybird, cat-bird, sap-sucker, thrush (two kinds), redbird, bluebird, wren (different kinds), mocking-bird, woodpecker, partridge, bee-martin, and several kinds of sparrows. Any of these I would like ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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
... tresses, soft, warm rain falls from the sky, All the birds come back a-building in the leafy 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 mass of green leaves growing ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... waking! From a wreath of snow, Close by the garden walls, the snowdrop springs; And the air rings with tender melodies, Where thro' the dark firs flash the bluebird's wings. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... monkey in his madness Took the glue to mend his voice, 'Twas the crawfish showed his sadness That the bluebird could rejoice. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... in red come o'er the hill, Lay down your arms, damned rebels! cry The men in red full haughtily. But never a grounding gun is heard; The men in fustian stand unstirred; Dead calm, save maybe a wise bluebird Puts in his little heavenly word. O men in red! if ye but knew The half as much as bluebirds do, Now in this little tender calm Each hand would out, and every palm With patriot palm strike brotherhood's stroke Or ere these ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... 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 ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... few golden and more bald-headed eagles, the American rough-legged and other hawks, the black and the white gyrfalcons, the osprey, and eight owls, including the great horned owl, the boldest bird of all. The raven is widely distributed all the year round. Several woodpeckers, kingfishers, jays, bluebird, kingbird, chickadee, snow bunting; several sparrows, including, fortunately, the white-crowned, white-throat and song, but now, unfortunately, the English as well. There are blackbirds, red-polls, a dozen warblers, the American robin, ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... surmised something of the kind, 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 notice on ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... upon nearing the garden, and were content to move 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
... 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 the bat Has got more brains than's ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... 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 Maeterlinck's play. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... 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 ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... on the Tennessee; Sabbath—and morning Breaks with a bird note that pulses along; A melody sobs in the heart of its dawning— The pain that foreshadows the birth of a song. Art thou a flecking, brave Bluebird, of sky light, Or the sough of a minor wove into a beam? Oh, Hermit Thrush, Hermit Thrush, thou of the eye bright, Bird, or the spirit of ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... her engagement in the month of May. She had asked twenty-four of her best friends to come to a bluebird tea one Saturday afternoon, and nobody suspected her secret, although they did remember that the ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... 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
... 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
... the early spring, Before a bluebird dared to sing, Cloaked and furred as in winter weather,— Seal-brown hat and cardinal feather,— Forth with a piping song, Went Gold-Locks "after flowers." "Tired of waiting so long," Said this little ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters. On the 13th of March, after I had heard the bluebird, song sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. As the weather grew warmer it was not sensibly worn away by the water, nor broken up and floated off as in rivers, but, though it was completely ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... down the traffic lands, And loiter through the woods with spring; To them the glory of the earth Is but to hear a bluebird sing. ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... noisy throng; About the meadows all day long The shore-lark drops his brittle song; And up tihe leafless tree The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings; The bluebird dips with flashing wings, The robin flutes, the sparrow sings, And the swallows ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... 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 the trees ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... nearly broke with 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
... red-breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, Carolina wren, cardinal, evening grosbeak, tufted titmouse, Canada jay, Florida jay, Oregon jay, and redpoll. Even in spring untiring patience has resulted in the gratification of this supreme ambition of the bird-lover, and bluebird, robin, cat-bird: chipping sparrow, oven-bird, brown thrasher and yellow-throated vireo have been known to feed from the hand of a trusted friend, even with plenty of food all around. What scout can ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Crowd golden round her, leaning their heads to hear. Then through the 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
... wus white es yer skin them days, Yer eyes es clar es the creek at rest; The wust idee in yer head thet time Wus robbin' a bluebird's swingin' nest. Now ain't ye changed? declar fur it, pard; Thet creek would question, it 'pears tew me, Ef ye looked in its waters agin tew night, 'Who may this old cuss of ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... The voices of young birds were heard on every side. The young thrasher and the robin chirped in the grove; sweet bluebird and pewee baby cries came from the shrubbery; the golden-wing leaned far out of his oaken walls, and called from morning to night. Hard-working parents rushed hither and thither, snatching, digging, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... making a collection of birds' eggs, and would like to exchange with any of the correspondents of YOUNG PEOPLE. I have eggs of the robin, cat-bird, bluebird, king-bird, brown thrush, orchard oriole, and of ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... every bird that flies. Anatomy and dress and even voice aside, who does not feel the dissimilarity between the cat-bird and the robin, and still more the difference, amounting to contrast, between the cat-bird and the bluebird? Distinctions of color and form are what first strike the eye, but on better acquaintance these are felt to be superficial and comparatively unimportant; the difference is not one of outside appearance. It is his gentle, high-bred manner ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... fields of luxuriant wheat glistened with dew. It is remarkable how, in the midst of the most absorbing cares, one's attention may be fixed by some insignificant object, as mine was by the flight past the line of a bluebird, one of the brightest-plumaged of our feathered tribes, bearing a worm in his beak, breakfast for his callow brood. Birdie had been on the war path, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... suggested that she go with Elliot to make his calls, while he went with Aaron and the team. It was a beautiful morning; spring seemed to have arrived. Everywhere was the plash of running water, now and then came distant flutings of birds. "I know that was a bluebird," Clemency said happily. "I feel sure mother will get well now. It seems wicked to be glad that the man is dead, especially on such a morning, but I wonder if it is, when he ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... 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 ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... ballad the Bluebird sings, Unto his mate replying, Shaking the tune from his wings While he is flying: Surely, surely, surely, Life is dear Even here. Blue above, You to love, ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... song from every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,— The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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 progeny, a larger ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... runs out into the old clearing, or down through the pasture, you find other and livelier birds,—the robins, with his sharp, saucy call and breathless, merry warble; the bluebird, with his notes of pure gladness, and the oriole, with his wild, flexible whistle; the chewink, bustling about in the thicket, talking to his sweetheart in French, "cherie, cherie!" and the song-sparrow, perched on his favourite limb of a young maple, dose beside the water, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... day for all lovely dreams 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly under ...
— Options • O. Henry
... the other 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
... twitter of the bluebird and the jay, And that sassy little critter jes' a-peckin' all the day; They's music in the "flicker," and they's music in the thrush, And they's music in the snicker o' the chipmunk ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... but we might put it over. Our pay was pretty good and the construction boss could get us a check as we go on if the work was approved. Of course, if we were pushed, we could sell out the Bluebird. The assay's all right and one or two of the big syndicates are looking up copper. Still ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... six and seven o'clock in the morning, a radiant June morning, which seemed alive with pleasant things. As he stood with his head thrown back, taking a good draught of the delicious mountain air, a bluebird shot, like a bit of the sky, in and out among the solemn pines and delicate aspens. He looked down on the tangle of blossoming vines and bushes that latticed the borders of the brook, which came dashing down from the canon, still rioting on its ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... of some of the different articles are: In the Hemlocks, The Adirondacks, Spring at the Capital, and The Bluebird. ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... cabin up Lone River; whistling of robins in spring—nothing sweeter—the chordlike whistlings of thrush and vireo after sunset, that bubbling "mar-guer-ite" with which the blackbirds woo, and the light diminuendo with which the bluebird caressed the air after an April flight. Perhaps Joan's musical faculty was less untrained than any other. After all, that "Aubade Provencale" was just the melodious story of the woods in spring. Every note linked itself to an emotional, subconscious memory. It filled Joan's heart with the freshness ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... 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 no ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... 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, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... in the meadow, In a hole in a tree, Lived a mother bluebird And her little birdies three. "Sing!" said the mother; "We sing," said the three: So they sang and were glad In the hole in ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... 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 Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... the human heart opens partly, disclosing unimaginable depths. Astarte becomes platonic. The miracle of the transformation of monsters by love is being accomplished. Hell is being gilded. The vulture is being metamorphosed into a bluebird. Horror ends in the pastoral. You think you are at Vouglans's and Parent-Duchatelet's; you are at Longus's. Another step and you will stumble into Berquin's. Strange indeed is it to encounter Daphnis and Chloe in the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... When the Bluebird reached Center Island, Tim had just embarked in the Butterfly, and Barney was preparing to do the same in the Zephyr. The Rovers were utterly confounded at this unexpected invasion of their domain, and hastily ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... naturalist may be a bore; but Thoreau regarded nature with the eyes of a poet. His ear was thrilled with the vesper song of the whippoorwill, the lisping of the chickadee among the evergreens, and the slumber call of the toads. For him the bluebird "carries the sky on its back." The linnets come to him "bearing summer in their natures." When he asks, "Who shall stand godfather at the christening of the wild apples?" his reply shows rare ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... was away like a flash. The overseer kept on to the end of the wharf, 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
... 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 quail and ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 devouring many ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... gurgling gushes Like nectar from Hebe's Olympian bottle, The laughter of tune from a rapturous throttle! Such melody must be a hermit-thrush's! But that other caroler, nearer, Outrivaling rivalry with clearer Sweetness incredibly fine! Is it oriole, redbird, or bluebird, Or some strange, un-Auduboned new bird? All one, sir, both this bird and that bird, The whole flight are all the same catbird! The whole visible and invisible choir you see On one lithe twig of yon green tree. Flitting, feathery Blondel! Listen to his rondel! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... forms of two birds standing with wings outstretched, facing one another, their beaks close together. These represent certain birds of blue plumage called by the Navajo çòli (Sialia arctica). This bluebird is of the color of the south and of the upper regions. He is the herald of the morning. His call of "çòli çòli" is the first that is heard when the gray dawn approaches. Therefore is he sacred, and his feathers form a component part of nearly all the plume sticks used in the worship ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... stanzas, with their impossible rhyme, their involved significance, their interrupted flute-note of birds that have no continuous music, seem to have caught the ear of a group of eager listeners. A shy New England bluebird, shifting its light load of song, has for the moment been ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... you like to fix it," said Earl,—"eggs or calf's blood—I won't quarrel with you about the eggs, though I never heerd o' blue ones afore, 'cept the robin's and bluebird's—and I've heerd say the swamp black bird lays a handsome blue egg, but I never happened to see the nest myself;—and there's the chippin' sparrow,—but you'd want to rob all the birds' nests in creation to get enough of 'em, and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... 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 to ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the 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
... kingbird, and one will often see, and more often hear, the clear, strong notes of the Western meadowlark ringing over the hills and meadows. The wise, and rather murderous, magpie goes chattering about. Here and there the quiet bluebird is seen. The kingfisher is in his appointed place. Long-crested jays, Clarke's crows, and pigmy nuthatches are plentiful, and the wild note of the chickadee is heard on every hand. Above the altitude of eight thousand feet ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... thee, Robins to greet thee, Hey, little Sweetheart! and May morning, hey! Sunbeam and sing time, Bluebird and wing time, This time is kiss ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... birds that 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 a bird's ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... like to fix it," said Earl, "eggs or calf's blood I wont quarrel with you about the eggs, though I never heerd o' blue ones afore, 'cept the robin's and bluebird's and I've heerd say the swamp blackbird lays a handsome blue egg, but I never happened to see the nest myself; and there's the chippin' sparrow; but you'd want to rob all the bird's nests in creation to get enough ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell |
