Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
CELIA THAXTER.
[Illustration of two birds.]
THE COST OF A HAT.
"What does it cost, this garniture of death?
It costs the life which God alone can give;
It costs dull silence where was music's breath,
It costs dead joy, that foolish pride may live.
Ah, life, and joy, and song, depend upon it,
Are costly trimmmgs for a woman's bonnet!"
MAY RILEY SMITH
Among the cruel things that are done thoughtlessly there is none more
common than the wearing of birds' feathers as ornaments in hats. The
coloring is often exquisitely soft and delicate, and we do not think, at
first, what these beautiful feathers mean.
In the morning some mother bird sings her sweetest songs under your
window as she flies forth to look for food for her nestlings. At night
she lies wounded or dead and her little ones must starve alone in the
nest. Is the pleasure of wearing a dead bird enough to pay for this
suffering?
Perhaps you will say that since the bird is already killed when you buy
it, it may as well be in your hat as in the shop window.
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