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175 • Chapter 13 Writing the Book The Wren has many devoted friends who are ready and willing to defend it. —The Birds of Minnesota, 2: 92 Thomas Roberts threaded his way through the household at 2303 PleasantAvenueSouthenroutetohisstudy ,thelittleroominthebigduplex where he could sit and think. The children long gone, the flat itself was a quiet space, but in his study he had a desk, some books (though the bulk of his library was at the museum), and his father’s chair, an antiquated, straight-backed piece brought from Philadelphia so long ago that reminded him of his childhood. The study was warm with the glow of golden light, light suffused with the color of the autumn leaves outside the window. In late September, the leaves were turning quickly and hung only tenuously to branches under the onslaught of a cold wind. Far off, the rhythmic clang of church bells echoed in the morning air: Sunday, a day he frequently spent at home, writing letters or a paper, catching up on reading. He heard the fall of footsteps at the back of the house and then a murmur of voices, the nurse saying something to Jennie. For more than a year, Jennie had been housebound, essentially an invalid, incapacitated by a stroke in the waning summer of 1927. He had greatly curtailed his social life—their social life—in the wake of this devastating circumstance. A home that had entertained guests for dinner three or four times a week now saw only family . When he needed to be at the museum in the evening, he met friends at the Minneapolis Club for dinner. Visitors from out of town stayed at a local hotel,where oncehewouldhaveinvitedthemtostayintheemptyfirst-floor apartment, linger over dinner, and share a smoke at the Robertses’ hearth. Still, Roberts did not mind a quieter life, telling friends that he was “well and contented” and that “there is no reason why I should roam except . . . to see my friends [at an American Ornithologists’ Union meeting].”1 Writing the Book 176 He eased himself into his desk chair, contemplated the spread of papers, the bird lists, the unanswered letters. Tick tick tick. The clock in the front room paced off the time. He and Jennie were reaching the end, there was no denying it. Although he could still tromp about in the field, nearly as spry as in his youth, there were times when his seventy years rose up to remind him he had lived the biblical three score and ten. He had had spells of pain in his chest, just under the sternum, a great weight pressing on him. When he caught a cold, he took to his bed. When really ill, he called a nurse to spend the night, since Jennie could not attend to him. Reduced conviviality made it easier for Roberts to sit down and work on the magnum opus he had been moving toward his entire life. Indeed, he felt increasing pressure to put pen to paper and get the job done. On February 16 of that year, 1928, he had turned seventy, the ominous age for the Roberts men. In addition to the decline and death of friends and the dwindling of birdlife in Minnesota, he had a personal reason to devote long hours to writing. All year, he had been slowly working his way through the various families: loons, ducks and geese, owls, and so on. This morning he would begin on the wrens. He had a great deal of personal experience with the wren family, those bustling and noisy little brown birds of summer. House Wrens used to nest in the yard of his family home on Eighth Street sixty years ago. He had seen Winter Wrens on his trip to Duluth in 1878 with his father. His youthful self had called their long, intricate song “a wild, ecstatic bit of wood melody,” still a pleasing and accurate description in his opinion. He had first come across Marsh Wrens while out in the field working on the land-examining crewunderNathanButler.AndhissecretaryMabelDensmorehadprovided him with a detailed description of a rare Bewick’s Wren nesting near Red Wing—a sighting that was a feather in her cap. The wrens are in the family Troglodytidae, a humorous appellation. It refers to prehistoric cave dwellers and was no doubt tacked on them because of the wrens’, at least House Wrens’, preference for living in cavities—little cavemen .Robertsmusedthattherewasmuchtolikeaboutwrens.Theywerechipper , confiding, amusing in their choice of nest sites. He had...

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