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This spring
came in all at once as is often the case in Oklahoma. The weather was
still cool but warm enough for Carey to open the doors and windows. The
family was all out. It was a perfect time to clean.
The morning
had gone so well with her. Everything was becoming fresh and sweet
smelling even to the winter fabrics on the windows which had been removed
and washed. Carey's neighbor had dropped in for a cup of coffee while they
chatted about this and that.
All at once
a tiny little bird zipped in the back door, flew speedily through the
living room and on down the hall to a bedroom.
“You have to
find it and kill it. It is the worst of bad luck, you know.” The friend
was all but babbling to Carey.
Carey was
thoughtful as she began to search the bedroom for its hiding place.
“I think it was
a Wren.” Carey told her visitor. For all the years they had lived on the
windy hill there had never been the thrilling, exciting sound of a Wren
warbling song. They had planted and planted ground cover and trees but
possibly this little bird just wasn't up to the gales that could lift
anything and everything from the ground.
“She came in
here. I saw her fly through the door.” Carey was searching all over the
room for the bird. She looked under the bed, behind the drapes and under
chairs. After not finding the bird in the
closet she looked to one of the lower shelves close to the floor. There
she was. The tiny bird was huddled as close to the corner as she could.
“Oh there you
are!” Carey exclaimed. “Now how am I going to get you out of that tight
spot?”
The woman
pulled one of the big fluffy towels from its place and ever so slowly
covered the bird with it. In this way she was able to gingerly pick it up
within the folds of the terry cloth. Since the bird was lodged in the
corner at the bottom of the shelf it had no way to get away.
All the while
her company was watching her with frightened eyes as big as a wall eyed
horse's would have been.
Carey took
the towel to the back door to the outdoors while she carefully unfolded
it. The tiny Wren hurriedly flew as though he had been released from a
bow, straight as an arrow made her escape.
“Oh my! I can't
believe you let that bad messenger go. That is such a sure sign and it
isn't good, I'm telling you.” The neighbor woman was truly concerned.
“She was so
small and frightened.” Carey smiled.
It wasn't
too long after that Carey noticed the Wren flying in and out of an old,
small, cardboard box left at the bottom of some outdoor shelves. The box
was heavy and once held nails. Carey's husband had used them all but the
box which was still there.
“There is an
empty cardboard box on the bottom of those shelves out past the back
door. Don't throw it away. I think a Wren has made a nest there.” Carey
told her husband.
“Awfully
close to the door. I hope the little birds make it. The mother could get
frightened away.”
Carey
glanced toward the back door. “Oh they will make it. She knows she is
secure.”
Twenty
years later a little tiny Wren hopped on the white wrought iron chair
outside the window. For an instant she peeped into the window at Carey.
In a Wren's way it was there and then gone. Later a large warbling song
full of all the joy of life could be heard.
Carey pushed
her gray locks of hair back from her face as she stepped out of the house
into the winds of spring time there on the hill.
“Little Lady
Wren, my acquaintance of long ago, you and your sons and daughter's have
added more pleasure to this old place than anything I know. What a
wonderful scale of thank you notes you give me each year. |
