Blue-Bird Weather   By: Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933)

Works of Robert W. Chambers

The Streets Of Ascalon Blue Bird Weather Japonette The Adventures of a Modest Man The Danger Mark Special Messenger The Firing Line The Younger Set The Fighting Chance Some Ladies in Haste The Tree of Heaven The Tracer of Lost Persons A Young Man in a Hurry Lorraine Maids of Paradise Ashes of Empire The Red Republic Outsiders The Common Law Ailsa Paige The Green Mouse Iole The Reckoning The Maid at Arms Cardigan The Haunts of Men The Mystery of Choice The Cambric Mask The Maker of Moons The King in Yellow In Search of the Unknown The Conspirators A King and a Few Dukes In the Quarter

For Children

Garden Land Forest Land River Land Mountain Land Orchard Land Outdoor Land Hide and Seek in Forest Land

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, New York

BLUE BIRD WEATHER

by

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

[Decoration]

With Illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson

[Illustration: "She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly." [Page 140]]

D. Appleton and Company New York and London :: MCMXII

Copyright, 1912, by Robert W. Chambers

Copyright, 1911, by International Magazine Company

Published October, 1912

Published in the United States of America

TO JOSEPH LEE OF NEEDWOOD FOREST

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

"She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly." Frontispiece

"She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue bird weather.'" 14

"'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss Herold?'" 26

"'I'm so sorry, Jim.'" 33

"They ate their luncheon there together." 88

"'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'" 99

"'He tells you that he he is in love with you?'" 127

BLUE BIRD WEATHER

I

It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway.

The boy who was driving had scarcely spoken since he strapped Marche's gun cases and valise to the rear of the rickety wagon at the railroad station. Marche, too, remained silent, preoccupied with his own reflections. Wrapped in his fur lined coat, arms folded, he sat doubled forward, feeling the Southern swamp chill busy with his bones. Now and then he was obliged to relight his pipe, but the cold bit at his fingers, and he hurried to protect himself again with heavy gloves.

The small, rough hands of the boy who was driving were naked, and finally Marche mentioned it, asking the child if he were not cold.

"No, sir," he said, with a colorless brevity that might have been shyness or merely the dull indifference of the very poor, accustomed to discomfort.

"Don't you feel cold at all?" persisted Marche kindly.

"No, sir."

"I suppose you are hardened to this sort of weather?"

"Yes, sir."

By the light of a flaming match, Marche glanced sideways at him as he drew his pipe into a glow once more, and for an instant the boy's gray eyes flickered toward his in the flaring light. Then darkness masked them both again.

"Are you Mr. Herold's son?" inquired the young man.

"Yes, sir," almost sullenly.

"How old are you?"

"Eleven."