Then came a second
discovery: it could curl its beak in a little coil when leaving a flower.
A few days later I saw distinctly that it had four wings but I could
discover no feet. I became a rank doubter, and when these convincing
proofs were carried to my father, he also grew dubious.
"I always have thought and been taught that it was a bird," he said,
"but you see so clearly and report so accurately, you almost convince
me it is some large insect possibly of the moth family."
When I carried this opinion to my mother and told her, no doubt
pompously, that `very possibly' I had discovered that the Lady
Bird was not a bird at all, she hailed it as high treason, and
said, "Of course it is a bird!" That forced me to action. The
desperate course of capturing one was resolved upon. If only I
could, surely its feet, legs, and wings would tell if it were a
bird. By the hour I slipped among those bloom-bordered walks
between the beds of flaming sweet-williams, buttercups, phlox,
tiger and day lilies, Job's tears, hollyhocks, petunias, poppies,
mignonette, and every dear old-fashioned flower that grows, and
followed around the flower-edged beds of lettuce, radishes,
and small vegetables, relentlessly trailing Lady Birds.
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