the yard. I placed it right side up with care on the ground when it immediately turned over, feet up, and crying with all its might. The mother flew to it, or just above it, and the child bird caught her feet with its toes just as it had taken hold of my fingers. It was lifted in this way several times a few inches above the grass.

Dark was coming on and I replaced it in the nest. Next day I found it on the ground. Placing it in a box so it should remain in my sight and not struggle away, I watched from an upper window. The mother flew down and stepped lightly upon the back of the young one, clutching an instant, but unable to

get a good hold. She returned several times, apparently trying to teach the child the art of turning over on its back and taking hold. I went down and turned it over, but the little thing was stupid. A boy, whom I know and respect, told me that he has seen a mother mocker carry a young one into the nest, and I believe his story.

As to the further baby habits of the mocker family, I have not room in this article to describe them. Of all our child birds they are the most interesting, probably for the reason that they remain infantile for so long a period. They do not seem to gain in intelligence at an early day. But let a mocker once come of age, and you need no other birds in your garden for company. You have all the birds.

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OUT WEST

But mocking-birds are growing less abundant each season. Where once four birds were nesting in the garden, a single couple are this year striving to raise their interesting family. Enemies to their freedom have arrested normal conditions. I would as soon shut up in cages our Southern California sunshine as to cage a mocker. No one has a right. They belong to the freedom of our Paradise. They are found north only through Salinas Valley and up the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys to Marysville.

Pasadena, Cal.

A SONG FOR ARIZONA.

By THOS. WOOD STEVENS.

HE kings of the world have waxed and died in nar-
rower states than mine;

And realms have risen to rampant power, to sink
in drear decline,

That were poor by the measure of my wealth-the
creditors of the brine.

Across my purple peaks the snows fall scant and
dry away,

And the breasts of earth that should be full are
withered and rimed and grey;

For the chill is mine of the dewless night, till the
barren, aching day.

I call to my heedless, jeweled sky-the shimmering
wanton smiles,

Flinging her bacchant robes of cloud across the
thirsty miles;

And the intimate stars come near in the night to
bare her mocking wiles.

I call on his hastening trails the wind, where the mad dust-
demons glide,

But he answers me with the sting of a lash and only a pause to chide,

And his forefront sweeps as a gloomy flame where the silence stretches wide.

For I was old when the Younger Sea arose to seek my bed,
And in my tale 'tis but a night that he and I were wed,
For in the morn I woke again, and the love of him was dead.

H

I rose and thrust him from my side, although he loved me well, And he was wroth to leave a house for the wailing winds to dwell;

He cursed me with his father's curse; we struggled, and he fell.

And on that morn across my brow he seared an open scar,
As the fingers of the Younger Sea have branded with a star
The brides that have one time been his, where his roving foot-
prints are.

And in that scar upon my brow, the token of his hate,

Still burns the ghost of his desire and the seal of his estate; For Time hath deeper scored the wound-the riven kiss of fate.

But in my heart I hide the wealth he gave the night before, And little men find to lure them on-a little that dreams of more,

But they may not face the wrath that guards the Sea's dear gifts of yore.

For I dare not show the first love's gifts to him that now is lord,
As I am faithful to the Sun in all things save the hoard
Of hidden gems of the banished Sea that in my breast is stored.

Now since the Sun hath held me queen, and kissed my lips with fire,

I have risen young again each morn and robed in queen's attire, Stifling the dream of other days in the heat of his desire.

Chicago, Ill.

THE

DELILAH ORDER.

By WİLLIAM MORRISON PATTERSON.

N one of those old towns of Tusayan,

Where terraced roofs are piled against the sky
In dusky heaps, a woman, glad of eye,
Sits singing on the house-top of her clan.
When all at once she chokes into a groan,

For lo a shame-faced man upon the trail,

Her husband, with his locks all shorn! the wail

Breaks from her lips and leaves her heart a stone.

O, she will "trust the white man" after this!

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66

You who propose to trample as you tame
Those simple souls, have played a reckless game.
Your craftiness has foiled your wits, I wis;
Or else, since you adopt Delilah's arts,
Delilah's lying love is in your hearts.

Los Angeles, Cal.

THE TRUSCOTT LUCK.

By MARY AUSTIN.

CHAPTER III.

T appears that my father had talked to his friends about

IT

his family, and had even chosen a house for us, which was a comfort to my mother to know, and Fitzgerald had some things of his, chiefly mining tools which could be sold, but altogether we were in desperate case. I could see plainly enough that the miners were inclined to think with cousin Trethvan, that my father had met death unfairly because of the money; but there were a few, and they were chiefly the women, who thought with my mother that he had fallen ill by the way and might be looked for to return. I have since thought it would have been a greater kindness if she could have been brought to believe him dead, for she was always fancying him suffering, dying, and in need of her.

All this time we were in great trial because of our poverty, which we could not bring ourselves to mention to anyone, and I fretting because I could think of no way to help. I was very well grown at that time and it seemed a shame that I could not do for my mother as well as a man. When I said to mother at last that I would go up to the Merry Thought and ask for work she dried her eyes and said, though I was not very well pleased with it, that she would go with me. So we set off up the hill at about the time when the day shift came out of the mine and the Superintendent sat at his door smoking and hearing their report. He considered a while when he had heard me, and was beginning a refusal when the night foreman spoke to him aside. Mr. Farley threw a look at my mother, very quick and bright, in a way he had, and after a little he said, "I suppose you would not care to do anything yourself, Mrs. Truscott?"

My mother thanked him very kindly that since her boy had no father and herself no man, she would be glad of a chance to fend for us both.

Mr. Farley said that the Chinese cook, and the boy who waited table would be leaving, and as he expected to reduce the working force, he thought my mother might manage the cooking with me to help.

We were very thankful for the opportunity though it went against my mother's pride to take service, and with a little more talk it was all arranged. There were twenty men to cook for, and the ways were strange, but the miners, who were many of them good cooks themselves, gave her many a friendly hint. My own part of the work did not prevent me from getting about to pick up new ideas which I brought to her; and with this, my

wages being sixteen dollars, she began to regard me, and I to feel myself, a great help to her.

We stayed at the Merry Thought five months, and all that time not a word of my father. Mr. Farley had inquiries made, but to no account, and we gradually fell out of the way of talking of it, though it was never out of my mother's mind I knew by the way she had of stopping her work to look down the road, and her quick paleness at a strange step or an unexpected knock. Sometimes when she had cooked some savory dish, she would keep a portion of it by her until it was quite spoiled, and though she said nothing I knew very well what was in her mind. Often in the night she would come and cry upon her pillow and I would comfort her.

So, having the favor of Mr. Farley, earning a good wage, and being made much of by my mother, I came to think rather well of myself. On that account I took it hard that the men should make light of my employment, calling me "John Chinaman" and "Polly-put-the-kettle-on," and making a great joke of the apron I wore, The boys too, of whom there were a few at Posada, a little older than I, and rather the worse for having had the run of mining camps, plagued me a good deal about my greenness and old-country ways. To be even with them I bragged and swaggered, and outdid them at the very tricks they taught me, which were principally swearing and playing cards. That was the perennial amusement at Posada, and most played for money. And partly I suppose because of the Truscott blood, and partly because I was fool enough to think it proved me a man, it was not long before I was at it. Besides my wages, which my mother was very liberal about letting me dispose of, I did errands for Mr. Farley, and was seldom without a small coin or two. But luckily enough, before any great harm was done my mother found me out, coming down upon us behind the smelter with the cards spread out and a little pile of silver beside.

My mother's grief and amazement were beyond the help of words, and perhaps she felt it was a case for a man to deal with. At any rate she marched me off to Mr. Farley, in one breath berating me, bewailing her lot, blaming the superintendent for my defection, and demanding that he should rate me soundly as I deserved. And that was hard upon Mr. Farley, since it was certainly no duty of his, and himself an inveterate player. But when my mother was gone he talked to me long of my duty to her, in a way that brings tears to my eyes to remember, and then with very much point and good sense about the evils of gambling. And, as I learned afterwards, not without reason;