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Billy and other stories from Wild Animals Ways being personal histories of Billy Atalapha, the Wild Geese of Wyndygoul Jinny

Book by Ernest Thompson Seton · 3 quotes · Bats

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Billy and other stories from Wild Animals Ways being personal histories of Billy Atalapha, the Wild Geese of Wyndygoul Jinny Quotes

“Now sped he like a pirate of the air. Now fled she like a flying yacht gold-laden, away, away, and the warm wind whistled, left behind. But the pirate surely wins when the prize is not averse to being taken. Not many a span of the winding stream, not many a wing-beat of that flight ere Atalapha was skimming side by side with a glorified Silver-brown. How rich and warm was that coat. How gentle, alluring the form and the exquisite presence that told without sounds of a spirit that also had hungered.”

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Book:Billy and other stories from Wild Animals Ways being personal histories of Billy Atalapha, the Wild Geese of Wyndygoul Jinny
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“And who shall tell the history of his bright young jailers at the mill? Little is known but this: the pestilence born of the flies alighted on that home, and when the grim one left it there were two new mounds, short mounds in the sleeping ground that is overlooked by the wooden tower. Who can tell us what snowflake set the avalanche a-rolling, or what was the one, the very spark which, quenched, had saved the royal city from the flames. This only did we know: that the Bats were destroying the bearers of the plague about that house; many Bats had fallen by the gun, and the plague struck in that house where the blow was hardest to be borne. We do not know. It is a chain with many links; we have not the light to see; and the only guide that is always safe to follow in the gloom is the golden thread of kindness, the gospel of Assisi’s Saint.”

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Book:Billy and other stories from Wild Animals Ways being personal histories of Billy Atalapha, the Wild Geese of Wyndygoul Jinny
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“Twice nightly they went flying with Mother to the long wet valley through the timber, and though at first they wearied before they had covered thrice the length of the Beaver ponds, their strength grew quickly, and the late Thunder Moon saw them nearly full grown, strong on the wing, and rejoicing in the power of flight. Oh what a joy it was, when the last streak of light was gone from the western world rim, to scramble to the hole and launch into the air – one, two, three- Mother, Brother, and Little Brother to go kiting, scooting, circling, sailing, diving, and soaring – with flutter, wheel, and downward plunge. Then sharp with huger they would dart for the big abounding game – great fat Luna moths, roaring June-bugs, luscious cecropias, and a thousand smaller gave were whizzing and flitting on every side, a plenteous feast for those of wings of speed.”

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Book:Billy and other stories from Wild Animals Ways being personal histories of Billy Atalapha, the Wild Geese of Wyndygoul Jinny
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