Hastening to the door they saw on the top of one of the tallest
elms a robin, with his crimson breast lighted up by the setting sun, and
his little head lifted heavenward in the utterance of what seemed the
perfection of an evening hymn. Indeed, in that bleak, dim March evening,
with the long, chill night fast falling and the stormy weeks yet to come,
it would be hard to find a finer expression of hope and faith.
The robin is a bird of contrasts. Peculiarly domestic in his haunts and
habits, he resembles his human neighbors in more respects than one. He is
much taken up with his material life, and is very fond of indulging his
large appetite. He is far from being aesthetic in his house or
housekeeping, and builds a strong, coarse nest of the handiest materials
and in the handiest place, selecting the latter with a confidence in
boy-nature and cat-nature that is often misplaced. He is noisy, bustling,
and important, and as ready to make a raid on a cherry-tree or a
strawberry-bed as is the average youth to visit a melon-patch by
moonlight. He has a careless, happy-go-lucky air, unless irritated, and
then is as eager for a "square set-to" in robin fashion as the most
approved scion of chivalry. Like man, he also seems to have a spiritual
element in his nature; and, as if inspired and lifted out of his grosser
self by the dewy freshness of the morning and the shadowy beauty of the
evening, he sings like a saint, and his pure, sweet notes would never
lead one to suspect that he was guilty of habitual gormandizing.
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