A Day in the Country

Little green swords had pierced the earth in countless numbers. Johnny took off his shoes and carefully pressed one foot down on the jade green points. He shivered, not because of the dew, but because the new grass tickled his winter-soft feet. Johnny put his shoes back on and walked along the pony path.

Betsy was still wintering in the barn. Her last year’s trail from the brook to the top of the pasture was plain to see.

When Johnny neared the ridge, he leaned against an aspen tree and with his toes idly rustled last fall’s coin-shaped leaves that hadn’t stuck to the ground from the weight of snow and rain.

From down the slope Johnny could hear his name being called.

The boy’s eyes followed the direction of the call.

“Johnny, want to help drive the horses?”

“Oh, boy, do I!” he called back and fairly flew down to the field where Dad sat on the seat behind the plow. His father held the reins of a perfectly matched pair of roans with sorrel manes lifting and falling in the breeze, their heavy fetlocks fluttering like tiny wings above the broken sod.

Johnny listened carefully to his father’s instructions. “When you come to the knoll on your left, guide the plow well around it and don’t let the horses step on it either.”

“Why, Dad?” Johnny was puzzled because his father always took pride in plowing a straight furrow, and these instructions were contrary to all the principles of good farming. He remembered his father telling him once that nothing is a beautiful as a row of grain standing in flawless line, so straight that even a sunbeam piercing the mist at morning does not appear more perfect.

“On that little mound of earth a meadowlark is making a nest. The reeds rising above it act as a cover,” Dad explained. “So the meadowlark feels that its family is safe. Survival of all creatures is one of nature’s laws that man must learn to respect.”

Johnny took his turn with the horses, holding the free ends of the reins as he sat on his father’s knee. As they approached the lark’s knoll, Johnny said, “Careful, Dad, don’t let the plow touch the lark’s nest.” And the two plowmen, with great care, curved the furrow that lay so straight behind them. When Johnny became tired he jumped down, turned the reins over to his father, and climbed to the ridge. He wandered along the same pony path that led back to the barnyard.

Several weeks later Johnny again came up the path, this time holding a bridle in back of him and an apple in his outstretched hand. “Betsy! Betsy!” he called. Then he stopped at a fence post and listened. He could hear the chirping of very young birds. He quickly dropped the bridle and apple.

Bracing one foot on the barbed wire, the boy heaved himself up so he could see the hole from where the tiny sounds came. But the nest was in a deep hollow. He tested the wood at the opening and carefully tore it away until he came within sight of the nest and the gaping bills of three featherless baby woodpeckers.

“Wow!” Johnny exclaimed, picking up the bridle and apple, “am I in luck! I can come up every day and watch them grow.”

The next morning Johnny was up early to eat breakfast with his father.

“Are you going to help with the milking?” Dad asked, smiling at his son.

“Oh, Dad!” Johnny said excitedly. “I found some little birds in a nest.” Then he told how he had fixed the hole so he could watch them each day.

“Johnny, I hope you didn’t touch the nest,” Dad said. “Birds don’t like to be disturbed.”

After breakfast Johnny hurried up the hill to make sure the birds were all right. He propped his foot on the barbed wire, and looked in the ragged hole. “They’re gone!” he exclaimed. He reached down into the nest to make sure. It was cold and empty. Only the soft, downy bed remained. Tears came to his eyes and he ran into the barn where his father was milking the cows.

“You had to learn for yourself, son,” Dad said quietly when he had heard Johnny’s story. “Do you remember what I told you when we were plowing on the sidehill and plowed around the lark’s nest?”

“Something about respecting nature’s laws,” Johnny answered.

“That’s right,” Dad said. “Now you see that the woodpecker family chose that particular hollow post for a reason. The opening was just big enough for them, but not big enough for their enemies. When you changed that, any night owl could make a meal of the little ones. Maybe that’s what happened to your birds.”

“Dad, I didn’t want them to get hurt,” Johnny said.

“I know that, Johnny, I know.” He paused a minute before continuing. “It’s early in the year. Mr. and Mrs. Woodpecker will probably raise another family in some new nest before the summer is over.”

“Honest, will they?” Johnny asked eagerly.

“Honest,” Dad assured the boy. “And when they do, we’ll both remember how important nature’s law of survival is. Then we’ll have meadowlarks and woodpeckers and boys all growing and respecting each other. It’s all according to plan, son. Do you understand?”

And Johnny did.