The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story

im, but he went aloft in the barn and cried in his dull, monotonous to

ple, slumbering b

rested the great ultramarine dome of sky. About him he cou

ike a sparkling and living halo. As it came nearer, he disco

hear the wild beating of the wings as though they were rolling a tattoo on muffled drum

, and was lost from sight. Only a large oval opening of light-grey n

yells; a rackety, rumbling, rattling commotion mixed with the beat and s

of the air. From the fluttering starling to the giant albatross, all were liberated and each paid homage to him-the master of

e then craned his neck and turned his face to the oval nothingness-flapped his arms, and with a thrilling sens

is cages of pigeons, confronted with the sordidness of material

nd between the legs of slumbering horses, opening doors, boxes, and ev

ooded with fluttering birds. Only the hypersensitive Vera

e any mystery rega