Webster ate in silence for a few moments and then remarked, as though it were a matter of vital importance:
"'_Tweedle tweedle tweedle, Tweedle tweedle tweedle_,' Wilson described them that way a hundred and six years ago."
"I don't doubt it, my son. I am not questioning your word--nor Mr. Wilson's. But I don't see anything very remarkable in that: if you come to the bank any day, you can hear men say the same thing. They come in and say, 'Tweedle.' And they go out."
"Audubon described the notes as '_Turdle turdle turdle_.'"
Deeper silence at the table. Webster continued in the face of the silence;
"A living naturalist says the notes may be:
Silence at the table still more deep. Webster broke it:
"Another naturalist describes the bird as saying:
"'_Ter-wheeter wheeter wheeter wheeter wheeter._'"
Webster's father raised his eyebrows--he had no hair to raise--at Webster's mother: a sign that their graduate was beginning to celebrate his vacation.
"My son," he said, "when I was a little fellow in school, one of the reading lessons was a poem called 'Try, Try Again.' Perhaps the bird is working along that line."
"Thomas Jefferson followed a bird for hours in the woods," said Webster, with dignity: he somehow felt rebuked. "And for twenty years he tried to catch sight of another."
"Don't let me come between you and Thomas Jefferson," said Webster's father, waving his hand toward his son in protest. "God forbid that I should come between any two such persons as Daniel Webster and Thomas Jefferson!"
"The government at Washington," observed Webster stoutly, "is behind the Kentucky warbler."
"Then, my son, I advise you to get behind the Government."
The rusty bell at the little front door went off with a sound like the whirr of a frightened prairie chicken. The breakfast maid, also the cook, also the maid of all work, also a unit of the standardised population of disservice and discontent, entered and pushed a bill at Webster's father.
"The butcher," she announced with sullen gratification, "He's waiting."
As Webster's father left the table, he tapped his son affectionately on the head with his paper: "You follow the bird, my boy; and follow Thomas Jefferson, if you can. The butcher follows me."