"Bluebird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bluebird Bobolink Bullfinch Cock Canary Crow Cuckoo Eagle Falcon Goose Hawk Humming-bird Lark Mocking-bird Nightingale Owl Robin Summer Swallow ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... whispered, and up 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 and ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... you will be my True-Love, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll ask a little bluebird To sing a ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... 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 ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... the companionship of Bluebell, who gave no further offence, now that she had learnt self-command and the necessity of keeping her feelings to herself, the spring advanced apace, and the first bluebird, alighting on the garden rails, was descried with a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... 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
... a beautiful one, a 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... 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 ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... unwise to wait for the bluebird when you had beguiled me into breaking a promise, ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... of a peculiar mixture of emotions, a little guilt, a little shame, a little furtiveness, 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 ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... 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 ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... 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
... getting worse; an animal with power. He used to go hunting with the damnable Outsider weapon, although the meat killed with it wasn't fit to eat, and he used it on birds until there wasn't one left anywhere near the plant. He never killed a bluebird, though. He said it was bad luck. Sometimes he drank moonshine corn liquor, usually alone, because the Outsiders wouldn't touch it, but sometimes he made some of us drink with him, watching sharply to see we didn't ...
— Goodbye, Dead Man! • Tom W. Harris
... 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 ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... 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 ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... There, in this beautiful spot, where the 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 ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... long, Her coming startles. 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
... to "The Flower of Old Japan" comes that same note, like a bluebird in springtime, that note of belief, of trust, ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... 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 Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... 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
... 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 than I could myself. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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 mistaken for ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the 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 a whirlwind ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the flash of a bluebird's wing in the sun, as the page glanced up at him, and the sight of a face grown suddenly rose-red. Then the boy turned shyly, and slipping back to his cushion on the step, nestled himself against the chair-arm with a sigh that was ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... 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 Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... 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 ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... 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 active all winter; his track has dotted the surface of every new-fallen ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... sun began to rise. A gentle warmth stole over the place. Peboan, the Spirit of Winter, became silent. His head drooped, and the snow outside the lodge melted away. Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring, grew more radiant, and rose joyfully to his feet. The robin and the bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur at the door, and the fragrance of opening flowers came softly ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... 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 they ain't here in sugar ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... 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 the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... 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 the gift ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... 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, indigo bird, and ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... 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, Purely, ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... 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 ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... my boy," answered Tucker; then he paused abruptly and bent his ear. "Ah, there's the bluebird! Do you hear him whistling in the meadow? God bless him; he's a hearty fellow and has spring ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... 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 ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... 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
... the 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
... of the Bluebird, thinking to add a fresher tint to his plumage, a new tone to his melodious voice, or a word of praise to his gentle life, that is as much a part of our human heritage and blended with our memories as ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... hand. 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, or dragging their prey from every imaginable hiding-place. It was woful times ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the shutters wide and the daylight streamed in. It was not fraught with colour, like the mists of her dream, but was the clear, sane light of every day. A robin outside her window chirped cheerily, and a bluebird flashed across the distant meadow, then paused on the rushes at the bend of the river and swayed there for a moment, like some ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... dominion, And that with paddle 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? ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the picture is not inclosed by the rainbow, we see the 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 ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... of the Hylocichlae is true of 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
... "Our Pan is dead; His pipe hands 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... 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 did not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with heat and cold and cramped with age, Who grunts at all the sunlight through the year, And springs from bed each morning with a cheer. Of all his neighbors he can something tell, 'Tis bad, whate'er, we know, and like it well! The bluebird's song he hears the first in spring— Shoots the last goose bound ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... 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 of dreadful mines. ...
— 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 all the bleak ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... Billy Bluebird had a party In an elder tree, But the little black-eyed smarty Didn't ask us to his ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... 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 ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... of "whistlin'" about the 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
... 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 of in Massachusetts (but ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... wanted fur 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
... my sentiment of the moment seized upon and rejoiced 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 internally and mentally. But the sympathetic spirit who was directing this geographic ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... gleams softly in the sun, The morning widens o'er the world: The bluebird's song is just begun, And down the skies white ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 visiting from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, Their sweet liquidity diluted some By dewy orchard spaces they ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... bluebird," they said; and like a bird she chirped and twittered, singing snatches of song, and asking ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... the bluebird, And the bluebird told the brook, That the dandelions were peeping From the woodland's ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... even to tears, he heard the robin sing His song of welcome to the Western spring, And bluebird borrowing from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... 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 arms of pearly ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... thee, 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
... 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' 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? ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... 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
... the bird whistled shrilly, like the cardinal; then he trilled like the canary, and chirped like the sparrow. He gave a call like the hen quail's, and sang a song exactly like the song of the bluebird. Then he twittered like a number of smaller birds, sang the song of the robin, and came back to ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... first 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 Trust ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... 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
... 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
... which rises into the frosty air, 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, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... The tubbily girthy Gannette, dressed to represent a cabbage, opposed her every step as he bobbed before her, showering his viscous compliments upon the graceful creature. Kathleen Ames appeared as a bluebird; and she would have picked the fair white rose to pieces if she could, so wildly jealous did she become at the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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 ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... 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 ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... 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 can hardly conceive of the country without ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Jim proposed in due 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 under ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... oppressively hot, as the men in blue tramped through the forest aisles of the vast Virginia jungle—a maze of trees, underbrush and dense foliage. A pall of ominous silence hung over this labyrinth of desolation, broken only by the chirp of bluebird or the distant call ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... Like a fluttering bluebird she flew back to the house to do his bidding. Excited she was, and worried, and more than ever inclined to exclamation points and unfinished sentences; but she was no longer panic-stricken. She was the Mary V who would move heaven and earth and slosh all ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... 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, and was ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... early number of BIRDS we presented a picture of the common Bluebird, which has been much admired. The mountain Bluebird, whose beauty is thought to excel that of his cousin, is probably known to few of our readers who live east of the Rocky Mountain region, though he is a common winter sojourner in the western part of Kansas, beginning to arrive ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... 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 girl in ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... Kabibonokka, You are but my fellow-mortal!" 225 Shawondasee, fat 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, 230 Sent the Opechee, the robin, Sent the bluebird, the Owaissa, Sent the Shawshaw, sent the swallow, Sent the wild-goose, Wawa, northward, Sent the melons and tobacco, 235 And the grapes in purple clusters. From his pipe the smoke ascending Filled the sky with haze and vapor, Filled the air with dreamy softness, Gave a twinkle to the water. 240 ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... long day-dreams shaken, The vivid violets waken; His Southern haunts forsaken, The bluebird flecks the sky; Ah, breath of bloom-bright heather, Ah, golden Maytime weather, We drift in dreams together— Together, ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... that the bluebird is singing, Out in the apple-tree where he is swinging; Brave little fellow, the skies may look dreary; Nothing cares he while his heart ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... still; The men 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)
... wild rose swayed above its image along every little shadowed stream, and the scent of wild grapes was sweet in the air and as vagrant as a bluebird's note in autumn. The rhododendrons burst into beauty, making gray ridge and gray cliff blossom with purple, hedging streams with snowy clusters and shining leaves, and lighting up dark coverts in the woods as with white stars. The leaves were full, ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... to my school days, although the first actually published was "Why the Chicadee Goes Crazy Twice a Year." This in its original form appeared in "Our Animal Friends" in September, 1893. Others, as "The Fingerboard Goldenrod," "Brook-Brownie," "The Bluebird," "Diablo and the Dogwood," "How the Violets Came," "How the Indian Summer Came," "The Twin Stars," "The Fairy Lamps," "How the Littlest Owl Came," "How the Shad Came," appeared in slightly different form in the Century Magazine, 1903 ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... pussy-willows begin 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 Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... 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
... 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 add ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... 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
... 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 Maeterlinck's play. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Aunt Isabelle's hushed voice which gave the appropriate phrase. "She looks like a bluebird—for happiness." ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... springs upon the ledge, A lark sits singing in the hedge; Sweet perfumes scent the balmy air, And life is brimming everywhere. What lark and breeze and bluebird sing, Is ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... all night, Dreaming within our dreams, To wake at dawn and find that they were captured With no dew on their leaves; Sometimes mid sheaves Of braken and dwarf-cornel, and again On a wide blue-berry plain Brushed with the shimmer of a bluebird's wing; A rocky islet followed With one lone poplar and a single nest Of white-throat-sparrows that took no rest But sang in dreams or woke to sing,— To the last portage and the height of land—: Upon one ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... 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 several ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... fairy!" he cried. "I can beat that! They are blue as bluebirds!" Then he went on impetuously, telling me I was a real bluebird of happiness, a bringer of joy; that the ancients called the bluebird the emblem of happiness, but he knew the blue of my eyes was the real joy sign—or something like that he said. It startled me. I tried to tell him he must not talk like that but my words were useless. He went on to say that ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... 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 proportion lived to the following year. It was only a few years before the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... 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 pioneer hunter, Daniel Boone, the practiced ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... 25 An' why can't I? Must we give in," Says he with a grin, "That the bluebird an' phoebe Are smarter 'n we be? 30 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 5 Er prove 't the bat Hez got more brains than's in my ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... bluebird, with the earth tinge on his breast and the sky tinge on his back,—did he come down out of heaven on that bright March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that spring had come? Indeed, there is nothing ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... 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 Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... 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 butterflies circled ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... 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 is Eden's ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 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 ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... 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, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... 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 ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... 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, and singing happily, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... 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 the bat Has got more brains than's in my hat, An' I'll ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... bosom of 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 sound ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... that 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 ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... "Peep, peep!" counseled 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 ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... hear the bluebird's call in windy dawns, The robin's cheery note from dewy fields, The swallow's cry along the pool at eve, And I forget, forget the drift ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... beaux and belles of the season here; but the latter is only a 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 ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... her 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 think her ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... sunny day, in 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 girl ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... continued 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
... am 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
... a graceful bird, with a beautiful blue back and a reddish brown breast, as if his coat had been made of the bright blue sky and his vest of the shining red sand, was hopping. The field glass brought him within ten feet. A bluebird, sure enough! The first real, tangible sign of the spring that is to be, the first voice from the southland telling us that spring is coming up the valleys. There is no mistaking the brilliant blue, the most beautiful blue in the Iowa year, unless it be the ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... drooping tail for a few rods, then sank down again in the clover. From somewhere in the distance a Bob White's clear notes welled up through the silence. A flutter of wings near by, and I turned my head to see a bluebird flit gently to the top of a stake in the fence-corner not far away. They were abroad, these harbingers of spring, and I knew that balmy breezes and bursting buds came quickly in their wake. How sweet it was to know that earth's winding-sheet had been rent from her breast once ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... 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 ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... bluebird time, many moons ago. Little brooks laughed and danced, and all the forest ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... to 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
... of 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
... wintry 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 ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... Pinnacle and back when I 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 you got any ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... the 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
... spring run, I saw the common bullfrog out 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 ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... 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 their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... cryin' when the bluebird's nest fell an' smashed all the eggs," remarked Fayette, whimpering at the recollection. His words were "like a bit of blue sky, showing through a cloud," as the girl often expressed it, when the untaught lad revealed something ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond |
