Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/95

 scending spiral song, wild and weird, like the very spirit of the woods, yet wonderfully tender. Then the wood-thrush, which Mr. Burroughs considers the finest of all our song-birds, will fill in the silence with his flute-like song, liquid as molten silver falling into a crucible of gold. Soon the whippoorwills will call from a distance, the minor note of the woods. Perhaps the hermit thrush will close the concert with a song so tender and beautiful that I am left breathless and entranced.

As the vesper songs of the birds grow fainter and fainter, the cricket takes up the refrain from the grass near by. "Cheep cheep cheep. I am glad too. I am not much of a singer, but hear me. Cheep cheep."

Then the spring fragrance fills the air, the twilight deepens, the stars appear, and I go into the house. I have been hearing the birds praise God for His goodness and say all their other prayers as well. Instinctively my own heart swells with gratitude, because of the birds' vesper song, and their devotion to the ways of nature and the haunts of man.