James Lane Allen

James Lane Allen was born on a farm near Lexington, Ry. in 1850. The early years of his life were spent in careful study. He became interested in literature, and wrote sketches and poems for several magazines and papers.

In 1885 he went to New York City to continue this work. He wrote a number of interesting articles on the “Blue Grass Region” in Kentucky. These were published in “Harpers Magazine”. His first stories appeared shortly after in “The Century”.

Mr. Allen knows and loves Kentucky, and it is there that he locates his scenes. He has written a number of delightful novels which have been widely read. He resides in New York City and is popular as a writer.

It is the middle of February. So bleak a season touches my concern for birds, which never seem quite at home in this world; and the winter has been most lean and hungry for them. Many snows have fallen—snows that are as raw cotton spread over their breakfast table, and cutting off connection between them and its bounties.

Next summer I must let the weeds grow up in my garden, so that they may have a better chance for seeds above the stingy level of the universal white. Of late I have opened a pawnbrokers shop for my hardpressed brethren in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest, for every borrower will have to pay me back in due time by monthly instalments of singing. But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices?

And today, also, I ordered from a nurseryman more trees of holly, juniper, and fir, since the forest is naked, and every shrub and hedgerow is bare. What would become of our birds if there were no evergreens—Natures hostelries for the homeless ones? Living in the depths of these, they can keep snow, ice, and wind at bay; prying eyes cannot watch them, nor enemies so well draw near; cones, or seed, or berries are their store; and in those untrodden chambers each can have the sacred company of his mate.