THE O’LINCOLN FAMILY
A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in a grove;
Some were warbling cheerily and some were making love.
There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,—
A livelier set were never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle:—
Crying “Whew, shew, Wadolincon; see, see, Bobolincon
Down among the tickle tops, hiding in the buttercups;
I know the saucy chap; I see his shining cap
Bobbing there in the clover,—see, see, see!”
Up flies Bobolincon perching on an apple tree;
Startled by his rival’s song, quickened by his raillery.
Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air,
And merrily he turns about and warns him to beware!
“ ’Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O!
Wait a week, till flowers are cheery; wait a week ere you marry,
Be sure of a house wherein to tarry;
Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!”
Every one’s a funny fellow; every one’s a little mellow;
Follow, follow, follow, follow, o’er the hill and in the hollow.
Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly;
They cross and turn, and in and out, down the middle, and wheel about,
With a “Phew, shew, Wadolincon; listen to me, Bobolincon!
Happy’s the wooing that’s speedily doing, that’s speedily doing,
That’s merry and over with the bloom of the clover;
Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!”
O what a happy life they lead, over hill and in the mead!
How they sing and how they play! See, that fly away, away!
Now they gambol o’er the clearing—off again, and then appearing;
Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar and now they sing,
“We must all be merry and moving, we all must be happy and loving;
For when the midsummer has come and the grain has ripened its ear,
The haymakers scatter our young and we mourn for the rest of the year;
Then, Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste away!”
—Wilson Flagg, in Birds and Seasons in New England.
XVI
TREASURE-TROVE AT THE SHORE
The Herring or Harbour Gull
The autumn had been clear and fine, and the hillside farmers of Fair Meadows township had their out-of-door work well in hand by Thanksgiving. The fall-sown rye was well up, and the fields that were to lie fallow and be sweetened by the frost were ploughed and in good shape. Ice-cutting, on the chain of large ponds that lay in the valley between the hills north of the river woods, was an important industry of the region, so that every one was anxious to have the ice form clear and firm before snowfall. As yet, however, there had been no signs of either, except the thin ice with which Black Frost always covers the roof, gutters, water-pails, and shallow pools when he prowls round in the early morning, as if merely to let the good folks know of his presence, and to prepare them for his gentler mediating brother, Snow.
The day after Thanksgiving the wind began to blow, not in mere passing gusts, but steadily and systematically. Then, too, it came from a strange quarter for that season—the extreme southeast. This was the wind to drive the sea into the bay and force the water high on shore. Such winds, at this season, piled the elastic brown seaweed in long lines high above tide-water, and many a farmer, and market-gardener, as he ate his supper, laid plans to drive down to the beach next morning, with a double team, and secure a full load of the weed for covering his strawberry or asparagus beds.
Before morning, however, a driving rain set in that lasted for two days and kept everybody house-bound. The roadways ran water like rivers, and, by the time the storm lessened at sunset Sunday evening, there was barely a leaf left on the apple trees of the Birdland orchard, and Goldilocks was well-nigh heartbroken over the state of the lunch-counter, for, in spite of the protecting roof, the broken biscuits turned to paste, the suet hung in rags, and as for the kernels of cracked corn and the buckwheat, they had swelled as if they thought it was a spring rain and it was their duty to grow. So that Goldilocks was worried lest some Juncos and Goldfinches that made a hearty meal upon the grains, in spite of the rain, should suffer from a fit of indigestion.
Early Monday morning, when he returned to milk, the hired man at Tommy Todd’s, who had been spending the night with his brother at one of the little huts four miles below on the shore road, brought word that the great storm had, as he expressed it, “heaved” the deep-water oyster-beds that extended out through the bay and that in addition to the seaweed, the beach was completely covered with fine large oysters, bushels and bushels of them.
How the news spread, nobody knew, but by half-past eight every available team within a mile of Foxes Corners school was “hooked up” and entire families were hurrying toward the beach in every sort of vehicle, to gather up this unexpected treasure-trove of the sea.
The parents seemed to have entirely forgotten that school began at nine, and it was not to be expected that the children should remind them. And, truth be told, when Jared Barnes gathered his flock, grandma included, into the hay wagon, Sarah and Ruth, conscientious as they usually were about their lessons, entirely forgot the day of the week, so eager were they for the fray; for the prospect, not only of oysters to roast and stew, but of oysters to pickle and keep, was too great a temptation to resist.
Miss Wilde, who arrived at the schoolhouse rather earlier than usual, found the door locked, and no fire in the stove. It was Dave’s week to tend the fire, and, as Miss Wilde stood in the open doorway pondering on the matter, one of the most exacting of the school committee men came bumping along in a lumber cart. Pulling up his horses so suddenly that a neighbour who was with him tipped backward off the seat, he called to the astonished teacher: “You had best close up and go home; you won’t have any pupils to-day. Or else come down, and hold school on the shore! The rest of the committee will probably meet together in a few minutes, and we’ll vote to extend Thanksgiving holidays over to-day.” So saying, he cracked his whip and rattled downhill, leaving Miss Wilde to wonder if he was losing his mind, or the world was turning topsyturvy, or if she was still asleep, for it was beginning to be hard to wake up as the mornings shortened.
Miss Wilde locked the door and started to walk toward Eliza Clausen’s house, that being the nearest place where she could possibly find out what was happening. As she reached the cross-road that met the turnpike a little above the school, she heard the sharp trot of hoofs, and, turning in that direction, saw Jacob Hughes driving the depot rockaway, Goldilocks being beside him and Gray Lady seated behind. Goldilocks waved her hand on seeing Miss Wilde, and in another minute “teacher” was seated beside Gray Lady, and not only knew of the avalanche of oysters, but was herself on the way to the shore with her friends, who were going, not for the sake of the oysters, but to enjoy what was sure to be a picturesque scene, with the shell-strewn beach, the sharp bluff on the left, and the long sand-bar, with its lighthouse on the right, for a setting. Nor were they disappointed.
For once tell-tale news did not exaggerate, and, though there were many cut and scratched fingers from the sharp shells, before noon there was no one who had not gathered all the oysters he could carry. The more thrifty among the men also began to gather the seaweed into heaps safe from the incoming tide, so that they might be sure of finding it the next day, while the women and children gathered driftwood and, making fireplaces of a few stones, heated the coffee they had brought. For, though the sun was now shining clear, and the wind had dropped to a little breeze that scarcely moved the surface of the tide pools, there was a growing keenness in the air that named the month “December,” and promised the wind would be in the northwest by night.
HERRING GULLS
In spite of the unusual human picture before them, that which interested Gray Lady, Miss Wilde, and Goldilocks the most were the Gulls that covered the bare sand-bar, waded in the shallow pools, and clambered among the stones in search of food, which they picked out with their stout, hooked bills, then flew swiftly overhead toward the creek, across the salt meadows, with a shrill cry, such as the creaking windlass of a well gives when the rope plays out quickly and the bucket drops—“quake-wake-wake.”
Further out, in the arm of the bar, where there was no current, and the water was deep and smooth, many Gulls were resting motionless as white skiffs at anchor, or flying and diving for food in the wake of some boats that were evidently grappling to discover the extent of the damage to the oyster-beds.
“How many kinds of Gulls are there?” asked Goldilocks. “Three, I should think, unless the males and the females were different.”
“The Gulls here are all Herring, or, as the Wise Men now wish them called, ‘Harbour Gulls.’ The old birds have the pure white breasts and pearly gray, or what is sometimes called ‘Gull-blue,’ upper parts and the black-and-white wing-markings. The mixed and streaked ash, buff, and brown birds are the young of the year, while the black-and-white patched birds are not Gulls, but Old Squaw Ducks. These have spent the winter about the bay and bar ever since I can remember, and, strangely enough, both Gulls and Ducks seem to be no less in number than they were twenty years ago. That is probably because the Gulls are protected, and the Ducks’ flesh is so tough that even a hungry dog could hardly tear it apart. I hope your children are noticing these birds while they are gathering driftwood for the fires,” Gray Lady said to Miss Wilde. “It is very seldom that they come to the shore as late as this, or see the Gulls in such numbers. It seems to-day as though the storm must have driven all that belong to many miles of coast to take shelter in this bay.”
“Yes, they are looking,” said Goldilocks, “for Sarah and Tommy and Dave and Clary, who are all together by the nearest fire, are watching and pointing to the Gulls that are over by the boats, and I think that Bobby has found a dead Gull tangled in seaweed and he is showing it to the others.”
“Then I foresee that the Harbour Gull will be the bird of next Friday afternoon,” said Gray Lady, as they turned homeward, taking Miss Wilde with them for lunch, so that Gray Lady might talk over a new plan concerning the old farm-house in the corner of the orchard, with its great stone chimney where the Swifts loved to build.
As Gray Lady had expected, the next Friday afternoon, when she went to Foxes Corners schoolhouse, she was greeted by many enthusiastic accounts of the stolen holiday at the shore, but a perfect chorus of questions arose about the “big birds that fly and swim and yet aren’t quite like Ducks”; while Bobby proudly produced his treasured Gull, wrapped in a newspaper, at the same time assuring Gray Lady, as became a member of the Kind Hearts’ Club, that he hadn’t thrown a stone at it, or anything, and that it was “drowned dead in the seaweed.” All of which she already knew to be true.
“Why aren’t the Gulls there in the summer when we go down camping and clamming?” asked Tommy.
“Because,” said Gray Lady, “they do not like very warm weather, and nowadays at least, though they live all through North America, they do not nest on the Atlantic coast south of Maine. For this reason, we seldom see them between May and October, and that is the very time that you children and people in general visit the shore.”
“It must take a pretty big tree to hold a Gull’s nest,” said Dave, picking up the bird and weighing it in his hand; “it’s lots bigger than a Crow.”
“Yes; a Gull measures two feet in length (that is, from the tip of its beak over its back to the tail, which is the way the length of a bird is reckoned), and is quite three feet across the spread of its open wings, while the body of the Crow is five inches shorter and the wings only spread a little over two feet.
“You probably noticed, the other day, what very long, pointed wings the Gulls have. But though these Gulls do sometimes nest in fairly high trees and in bushes, it is not common, and their favourite place is on the gray shingle, and among the stones of rocky beaches well above tide-water, or else between tussocks of beach grass or sheltering pieces of driftwood.
“As a Gull’s chief food is gleaned from the sea, it must nest as close as possible to its source of supply. You can easily see that so large a bird could never be free from annoyance on our bathing beaches or offshore islands that are used as summer resorts; so, as people flocked to the shore, more and more, the places where Gulls might nest in comfort grew fewer and fewer, and they were driven to the remote islands like those off the Maine coast, Great Duck Island, No Man’s Land, and others, and it is at Great Duck Island that is to be found the largest colony of Gulls within the United States.
“But even here and on many lesser islands, with only lighthouses and their keepers for company, where there were no summer cottages or pleasure-seekers, until a few years ago, the Gulls were not safe, for they, like the White Herons of the South, were bonnet martyrs.”
“Bonnet martyrs!” exclaimed Eliza Clausen, jumping as if some one had stuck a pin in her. “I don’t think they would look one bit nice on hats; why, they are so big that there wouldn’t be any hat, but all bird.”
“You are quite right,” said Gray Lady, “but the whole Gull was not used. These beautiful white breast-feathers were made into turbans. Perhaps, on one side of these, a smaller cousin of the Gull, the Tern, or Sea Swallow, with its coral-red beak, would be perched by way of finish. Or else, soft bands made of the breast, and some of the handsomest wing quills were used for trimming.
“Not only were these feathers sold wholesale to the plume merchants and milliners, but people who went to the coast resorts would buy them of the sailors simply because they were pretty, without giving a thought to the lives they cost, or of how desolate and lonely the shores would be when there were no more Gulls.
“There are comparatively few people, I earnestly believe, who would wear feathers for ornament if they realized the waste of life that the habit causes. It is largely because people do not stop to think, and they do not associate the happy living bird with the lifeless feathers in the milliner’s window. But now that the Wise Men—yes, and wise women, too—have explained the matter, the protection of these beautiful sea-birds is an established fact.
“This bird was called ‘Herring Gull,’ because by hovering over the schools of Herring where they swam, and diving to get them for food, they told the fishermen, who spend their lives upon the ocean on the lookout, where the fish were to be found. Now, though the Gulls still do this, they do better work, also, for they spend the time that they are away from their nesting-homes about the harbours of the large cities, making daily trips up the rivers and cleansing the water of refuse, upon which they feed. For this reason, ‘Harbour Gull’ seems to be a better name for them.
“They are very sociable birds at all times of the year, keeping in colonies even in the breeding season, a time when song- and other land-birds pair, and prefer to be alone. The nests, when on the ground or upon flat rocks, are built of grass, mosses, seaweed, and bits of soft driftwood formed into a shallow bowl. If the edges of this crumble or flatten while the birds are sitting, they use bunches of fresh grass or seaweed to keep it in repair, with the result that the nest is not only a very tasteful object, but it blends perfectly with its surroundings.
“The eggs are very interesting because no two seem to be of the same colour, being of every shade of blue and gray, from the colour of summer sky and sand to the tint of the many-coloured, water-soaked rocks themselves. The markings vary also in shape and size, and are in every shade of brown, through lilac and purple, to black. The parents are very devoted to their nests, and take turns in sitting, though the eggs are often left to the care of the sun on days when it is sufficiently warm. When the young are first hatched, though covered with down, they are very weak in the neck and helpless; but in the course of a few hours the little Gulls are strong enough to walk, and the instinct to hide at the approach of anything strange comes to them very suddenly, so that a Gull only three or four hours old will slip out of the nest and either hide beneath a few grass blades or flatten itself in the sand, where, owing to its spotted, colour-protective down, it is almost invisible, so well does Nature care for her children—provided that man does not interfere. When a Gull nests in a tree, however, the little birds, not feeling the same necessity for hiding, do not try to leave the nest until the growth of their wings will let them fly.
“On the sea beaches squids and marine refuse are fed to the young Gulls, but where they have nested near fresh, instead of salt, water many insects gleaned from the fields are eaten.
“It was in the Gulls’ nesting season that the plunderers chose to go to their island haunts, steal the eggs, and kill the parent birds, whose devotion, like that of the White Heron, left the birds at the mercy of the plume hunters.
“At the end of summer the young, wearing their speckled suits, are able to join the old in flocks, and it is then that they scatter along the coast, some going from the northern borders down to the Great Lakes. In and about New York City they are one of the features of the winter scenery; they fly to and fro under the arches of the great bridge, and follow the ships the entire length of the harbour and out to sea. At night they bed down so close together that in places they make a continuous coverlid of feathers on the waters of the reservoirs and in the sheltered coves of the Hudson. From the banks of Riverside Park, any autumn or winter afternoon, so long as the channel is free from ice, they may be seen flying about as fearless as a flock of domestic Pigeons.”
“Here on our beach they are scary enough,” said Tommy. “Why, the other day I tried every way to creep up close to some of them, but I never could; they were always up and off, sometimes without saying a word, and sometimes screeching, ‘Yuka-yuka-yuka,’ enough to frighten any one. Pop says that, way back when he was a boy, and there weren’t any laws to prevent shooting anything except the game-birds out of season, that these birds were just as scary, so that the best shots used to go down on the bar and try to hit a Gull, not to eat, but for the sake of being called a good shot, because Gulls were harder to get than old leader Crows.”
“That is the very reason why Gulls alongshore are afraid now. For so many years they have served as targets for Duck hunters, and people who did not realize what they were destroying, that fear has become an instinct. Now in the nesting-haunts, where they are protected, they are gradually becoming more and more tame. About the harbours of cities and parks, where shooting has never been allowed for other reasons than bird protection, they fly about unconcernedly and exhibit little alarm.”
“Are Gulls any real use, except that they are nice to look at and watch fly?” asked Dave, presently, as Bobbie’s bird was being passed from desk to desk.
“Yes, the Harbour Gulls are useful in many ways, and would be more so if man would protect them fully everywhere, as they do in some countries and in some of the western parts of our own country; but, in general, they have been so persistently hunted that they shun the land-bound fresh water, where they would help the farmers by feeding on large insects, and prefer the freedom of the open water.”
“The true Gull of the sea, the spirit of the salt, is a sort of feathered bell-buoy, and thus is of use to the sailors, as there is ample testimony to prove.
“In summer, in thick weather, the appearance of Gulls and Terns in numbers, or the sound of their clamorous voices, gives warning to the mariner that he is near the rocks on which they breed. Shore fishermen, enshrouded in fog, can tell the direction of the islands on which the birds live by watching their undeviating flight homeward with food for their young. The keen senses of sea-birds enable them to head direct for their nests, even in dense mist.
“Navigators approaching their home ports during the seasons of bird migration welcome the appearance of familiar birds from the land. . . .
“Sea-birds must be reckoned among the chief agencies which have made many rocky or sandy islands fit for human habitation. The service performed by birds in fertilizing, soil-building, and seed-sowing on many barren islands entitles our feathered friends to the gratitude of many a shipwrecked sailor, who must else have lost his life on barren, storm-beaten shores.”
—E. H. Forbush.
“Is mine a good grown-up Gull?” asked Bobbie, who had been waiting anxiously for its safe return to his hands, “because grandpa says if it is, he’ll take it over to town, and get it stuffed, and fixed up on a perch, to remember Oyster Day by; but I’ll bury it if you’d rather I would.”
“It is a fully grown bird, Bobbie,” said Gray Lady, “and it is wearing its winter dress. In summer the head and neck that are now streaked with gray would be a dazzling white, and as accident killed it, and wind and tide gave it to you, there is no reason why you may not keep it with a clear conscience.”
XVII
THE BIRDS’ CHRISTMAS TREE
Preparation
The Christmas sale was over. It had been held in the play and work rooms the Saturday before Christmas, and was a great success. The dressed dolls, iron-holders, aprons, bird-houses, wooden spoons, racks for clothes, and little knickknacks had been ranged on the work-table and carpenter’s bench, and all the people of the neighbouring towns, as well as from Fair Meadows village itself, had been asked to come and see. When they came and saw, they stayed to buy.
The bird-houses proved the greatest novelty, and Tommy Todd and Dave, their cheeks red with excitement, were kept busy taking orders for more, to be finished by May or June, one customer said. She, however, was very much amused when Tommy told her that if she expected to have birds in the house (it was a box for Tree Swallows) the first season, she must have the house in place before April, so that it might “be weathered a little, and the birds find it when they first came, and not think it was a trap put up to catch them.”
Gray Lady donated some delicious cake of Ann’s make, and hot chocolate, and while the visitors enjoyed it, they asked many questions about the bird class, the school at Foxes Corners, and the motives of the Kind Hearts’ Club itself; for this name had been printed on the posters advertising the sale.
The result that concerned the public good was that other men and women resolved, even if they could not do it as thoroughly as Gray Lady, to supply the teachers in their various districts with charts and books, and before night settled down, Sarah Barnes, the treasurer of the Club, was hugging tight in her arms a small iron box, with a lock and key, wherein were fifty precious dollars, while orders that meant an equal sum before the close of the school year were being copied from a rather mussy paper into a blank-book, by Tommy Todd, the secretary, whose usually clear upright letters were made crooked by his excitement.
The next question was, How should the money be spent? Each child was asked to write his or her idea on a slip of paper and bring it to the birds’ Christmas festival that was to be held, as seemed fitting, in Birdland, the afternoon before Christmas, from two o’clock until four.
“Supposin’ it’s cold and snowy?—that’s a long time to be outdoors,” said Eliza Clausen, as she walked home between Sarah and Ruth Barnes.
“It may not be out-of-doors,” said Sarah, looking very wise.
“Then it can’t be in Birdland, as Gray Lady said,” persisted Eliza, who, though she was less critical since she had come under the older woman’s influence, could not resist once in a while, “hoping for the worst,” as Gray Lady called borrowing trouble.
“Yes; the party can be indoors, and yet in Birdland,” answered Sarah.
“Oh, you’re trying to catch me with a riddle or something.”
“If I am, I’ll tell you the answer at the birds’ Christmas tree next Tuesday,” called Sarah, as she turned in at her own gate.
A two-inch fall of soft, clinging snow fell during the night before Christmas eve, so that the next morning “everything looked as pretty as the pictures on a calendar,” as Sarah Barnes said, when she arrived at Gray Lady’s door, bright and early, to help decorate the birds’ tree.
Sarah did not enter the door, however, for she was joined on the porch by Goldilocks and Ann, and together they walked through the garden to Birdland.
Jacob Hughes had swept paths from the house in and out among the trees through the garden. In Birdland he had used the single-horse snow-plough to scrape a track running from the bird lunch-counter, about the edge of the orchard, and then through the centre down to the old farm-house of the Swallow Chimney, that stood in the lower corner facing on what had been a cross-road, but was now a pretty grass-grown lane, with the snow wreathing the bushes of black alder, with its red, glistening berries, giving out a real Christmas feeling.
What had happened to the old house of the Swallow Chimney, where the General’s father had lived, but which had now remained closed for so many years, merely a storage-place for old furniture?
Smoke was coming from the great stone chimney, new shingles stained to look old replaced the broken ones, new paint glistened on the window-sashes, and the quaint old panes of glass, bearing the rainbow tints of years, shone like mirrors. The front door was painted dark green, and the spread-eagle knocker of brass was as bright as polishing could make it; while around the deep front porch was a little fence of cedar bushes in boxes, all garlanded with vines of coral, bittersweet berries.
Goldilocks and Sarah went to the front door of the old house, while Ann disappeared in the woodshed that joined the side porch and well-house.
The girls had not touched the knocker when the door flew open, and who should stand there but Miss Rose Wilde, while beyond her, sitting by the blazing log-fire in the long, low living-room, that had once been the kitchen, was her mother, looking better and younger than she had for at least ten years!
This was the secret. Gray Lady had repaired the old house and established the faithful little teacher and her mother in it, so that instead of mother and daughter only meeting once a week, or less often in winter, and each having a good bit of heartache between, they had a real home once more. What was also a bit of good luck, Mrs. Wilde’s furniture, that had been stored away, was of the kind that seemed as if it had been made for the old homestead and had never been anywhere else.
Once inside, Rose Wilde led them into the kitchen, where everything was as neat as wax, and there, spread upon tables and half-covering the floor, were the decorations for the birds’ Christmas tree.
Where was the tree itself? Where trees are the best and healthiest, out-of-doors back of the house, a stout, young spruce, some twenty odd feet high, growing in the orchard corner where no one had planted it, the child of one of the spruces near the great house,—a half-wild tree, sprung from the seed of a cone dropped by a Crossbill, perhaps, or left by a squirrel who was making a winter store-house in the attic of the farm-house.
The dainties for the tree were selected to suit all the various needs and appetites of the winter birds likely to come to the orchard.
Gray Lady, Goldilocks, Rose Wilde, and Ann had strung quantities of popcorn upon the chance of the Jays and Crows liking it. They had used strong thread, but had only strung the corn by the very edge, so that it would detach easily. There were lumps of suet, and marrow-bones, securely bound with wire, ears of red and yellow corn, bunches of unthreshed rye, wheat, and oats, little open boxes filled with beechnuts, and various wild berries. Last of all, something that Goldilocks had suggested, the heads of a couple of dozen sunflowers, filled with the ripe, nutritious seeds, for she had noticed that all the autumn the Goldfinches and various Sparrows had stayed about the beds where the composite flowers like asters, marigolds, cornflowers, zinnias, and sunflowers grew, and that also the wild sunflowers and black-eyed Susans of waste fields were always surrounded by birds.
Jacob Hughes had his ladders all ready, but it was no small task to keep him supplied with material, and there were many mishaps before all the articles were in place, but to Goldilocks’ great joy, before Jacob had fairly finished and taken the ladder away, a Chickadee and a Goldfinch were both clinging to the same sunflower head, and a little Downy Woodpecker had discovered one of the bones fastened to a branch and was revelling, “up to his neck,” as Sarah expressed it, in the marrow.
Underneath the tree a place had been cleared for the gifts Gray Lady had in store for what she called “the featherless two-legged birds of the Kind Hearts’ Club.”
After they had rested a few minutes, and were thoroughly warmed, Gray Lady, Rose Wilde, Goldilocks, and Sarah Barnes set out for a stroll through the orchard, and the lane that ran back of it, up to the farm-barns, to see what feathered guests were in the neighbourhood, the walk taking them past a great pile of unhewn wood and a tent-shaped brush-heap at the end of the lane.
Gray Lady used her opera-glasses, but the others trusted to their eyes alone. These are the birds they saw and named easily: A flock of Goldfinches in their dull winter coats feeding on weed seeds in the lane; their old friends the Chickadees, three Blue Jays, two Flickers, and several Downy Woodpeckers; Gray Lady thought possibly from their markings, a whole Downy family,—Mr., Mrs., and four children.
As they neared the woodpile Goldilocks stopped, her hand on Gray Lady’s sleeve and a finger raised in caution. “I do believe there is a Jenny Wren that has not gone away or is lost, it is such a little bit of a thing.”
As they stood looking, the little, neat, brown bird, about four inches long, ran up and down among the logs like a mouse, then flew with a little short flapping of the wings to the bush, where it clung to a spray, bobbing to and fro, its comical bit of a tail pointing as close to its head as possible. Then it appeared to pick something very deliberately from the twigs and flew back again to the woodpile with a sharp, warning note.
“That is not a belated House Wren,” said Gray Lady, “but the Winter Wren, his cousin, who nests from the northern boundaries of the states northward, but comes down in winter to visit us in southern New England and travels as far south as Florida. A brave little fellow he is to weather storms and cold here, and one of our three smallest birds, the Golden-crowned Kinglet and the Humming-bird being the other two. In his nesting-haunts he has a beautiful song; I have never heard it, but one of his admirers who has says that it is ‘full of trills, runs, and grace notes, a tinkling, rippling roundelay.’ ”
A few minutes later it was Sarah’s turn to exclaim, as she pointed to a small, sparrow-like bird, perched on a giant stalk of seeded ragweed at the side of the lane. “It’s a Chippy or else a Song Sparrow,” she said, hesitatingly. “It’s bigger than a Chippy, and it’s got a spot on its breast like the Song Sparrow, only it isn’t as big. O dear me! I don’t think that I shall ever be sure of telling Sparrows apart,” she sighed.
“To be sure a bird is a Sparrow is a step in the right direction,” said Gray Lady. “I have known some one older than you call me to see a big Sparrow which turned out to be a Wood Thrush. If you will remember one thing, it will help you in placing the smaller birds. Look at a bird’s beak; if it is thick, short, and cone-shaped, the bird is most likely to be a Sparrow, for this family are all seed-eaters except in the nesting season, while insect-eating birds, of all families, have longer and more slender bills.
TREE-SPARROW
“As for this little fellow, it is another of our winter visitors, the Tree-sparrow or Winter Chippy, and there is probably quite a flock of his kin at this moment distributed over the wild fields below, doing the work of seed-destroying that the farmers have neglected; for, aside from the cheerful companionship of all these winter birds, the Sparrow tribe is working for us all winter as Weed Warriors,[[3]] just as the tree-trunk birds are Tree Trappers, the birds who take insects while on the wing, Sky Sweepers, and the silent birds of prey, who sit in wait for the field-mice and other vermin, Wise Watchers.
“Ah, it is my turn now to make discoveries,” said Gray Lady, as they turned into the orchard at the end opposite the lunch-counter tree. “Keep very quiet, and look at the mossy branch of that half-dead tree to which some frozen apples still hang; what do you see, Goldilocks? Take my glasses and look carefully before you answer.”
“Where?” said Goldilocks; “yes; I see. One is a little, fluffy, greenish gray bird with a dirty white breast. Oh! he has a red stripe edged with yellow on top of his head! He moves so quickly that I can’t seem to see the whole of him with one look, though he is small. The other bird is a little bigger, and not so fat; he has a yellow spot on his head, and a brighter one over the tail, and a yellow spot on each side; he is striped gray and black all over, except some white on his wings and underneath. How he flits about, just like that bird that looked like a red-and-black butterfly that we saw last summer that you said was a Redstart.”
“You have very sharp eyes,” said her mother, “for you saw at once the identifying marks of two birds that were new to you. The merry fellow of the flaming crown is the Golden-crowned Kinglet, another sturdy winter visitor, who breeds in the North, and finds our climate quite warm enough for him if the food holds out; for he is a tree trapper, giving his attention, like the Chickadee, to the smaller branches and twigs too slender to bear the weight of the heavier tree-trunk birds.
“His companion is the Myrtle or Yellow-rumped Warbler, a hardy cousin of the Redstart and Summer Yellowbird that Sarah, perhaps, does not yet know by name, though she has doubtless seen them. When you have once seen the male bird, you will never forget him, because of the four yellow spots. These warblers are great insect eaters, but lacking these, they will eat berries, the bayberries being their favourite, and I believe that we have to thank the bayberry bushes, in the rocky hill pastures hereabouts, for the numbers of the Myrtle Warblers that stay all winter, myrtle being a common title for the bay, giving them their name.”
F. M. Chapman, Photo.
SHELTER FOR BIRD FOOD
At the garden end of Birdland, just inside the rustic gate, a flock of Juncoes or Gray Snowbirds were feeding, plump, cheerful, and contented, and giving vent to their satisfaction in their pleasant “tchip, tchip, tchip” call. Those who only know one winter bird know the Junco, for he belongs to city parks, village yards, and remote farms alike, anywhere that a frugal meal of grain or weed seeds may be found, with a piazza vine or brush-heap or haystack to creep into for shelter. His flesh-pink bill, slate-coloured coat, and neat white vest, together with the two conspicuous white tail-feathers, tell his name to any one who wishes to know it.
The Junco is an autumn and winter visitor only, being away from May until late September, as he nests northward from New York and Connecticut. When the flocks first return, you will be puzzled by many birds of the shape and build of Juncoes, but who are wearing more or less striped clothes; these are the young of the year.
“Five new birds in one morning! I wish Tommy had been here,” said Sarah; “but perhaps he knows them already; Tommy knows a lot you can’t see because it’s down so deep.”
“You must find us a new bird, too, before we go in to lunch, Miss Wilde,” said Goldilocks.
“I have been looking at, not one, but a dozen, while you have been watching the Kinglet and Myrtle Warbler. Look over the gate-arch across toward the house. Do you see something moving among the bunches of ripe spruce cones?”
“I see birds moving, but I want to go nearer.” So the party managed, by walking quietly, to reach the trees where the birds were feeding without disturbing them in the least.
“There are two kinds of birds up there,” said Sarah, presently, for it was her turn to use the opera-glasses. “They are both rather red. One is darker than the other and has no white on him. The other is lighter red and has some white on the wings and tail. Why, Gray Lady! their beaks are out of joint at the end and don’t shut tight. I wonder what can have happened to the poor things. I thought at first they might be wild parrots.”
Gray Lady and Miss Wilde both laughed, Sarah’s concern for the birds was so real.
“You are right about the bills not closing at the tip, but it is not owing to an accident. Nature developed this bill so that the bird, who is a lover of evergreen forests, might be able to wrench open the cones, the only winter food that is oftentimes to be found.
“The bird belongs to the Finch and Sparrow family, though you would never guess it, and is called the ‘Crossbill.’ The plain red one is the Red-winged Crossbill, and the lighter-coloured one, with white markings, the White-winged Crossbill. Both birds nest north of New England, but travel about the country in little flocks, sometimes going as far south as Virginia and the Gulf States.”
“Listen, I think I can hear the crackling as they tear the scales from the cones,” said Goldilocks.
“Yes, and you can see those that they have dropped lying on the fresh snow under the trees,” added Sarah.
At that moment an old-fashioned dinner-bell sounded from the direction of the farm-house in the orchard. It was Mrs. Wilde letting them know that luncheon was ready, for Gray Lady, Goldilocks, and Sarah were to lunch at “Swallow Chimney,” as Goldilocks had christened the restored home, by way of a house-warming.
As they left, the Crossbills, who had been climbing up and down, with all the adroitness of the Chickadees or the Upside-down birds themselves, suddenly took to wing, giving short, metallic-sounding cries, flew rapidly over the orchard, to alight—where do you suppose? On the birds’ Christmas tree. Here, after some inspection, they began to tear at the popcorn, their twisted beaks doing the work so well that they seemed fashioned for that purpose alone.
“Well,” said Goldilocks, her hands clasped in amazement, as they reached the farm-house, and saw what had happened, “I never knew anything quite so quick to happen outside of a story-book!”
| [3] | See Citizen Bird. |
XVIII
HOW THEY SPENT THEIR MONEY
At two o’clock a procession of the pupils of Foxes Corners school filed through the hall at “the General’s,” wondering what new surprise was in store. The big boys, who would not begin school until the mid-winter term, had come under the strong persuasion of Tommy and Dave. They looked rather uneasy, however, as if they were not quite sure whether the performances that the younger boys considered “bully” might not be undignified for men of their age.
As the children went through the garden, Jim Crow lurched out of a bush and walked along after them with an air of great importance, as if he were the master of ceremonies. Larry, the Starling, was not particularly fond of cold weather, and kept inside the shelter of the south porch, making little excursions here and there, prompted by curiosity, and the desire to use his wings, which were now quite strong, as food was to be had from the dish that he and Jim shared, merely for the eating.
The lunch-counter was well patronized that afternoon, for, in addition to the birds that had been in the vicinity during the morning, several Bluebirds came, together with three Robins, who simply gorged themselves upon some dried currants that Goldilocks had put out as an extra dainty. Gray Lady was trying experiments with all sorts of odds and ends at the lunch-counter, that she might see exactly what sort of food was the most acceptable, and she was very much surprised to find that though wild birds, like human beings, can adapt themselves to circumstances, a great number have such a craving for animal food that it explained why Crows, Jays, and some others become nest-robbers in the midst of summer plenty.
After they had called upon Miss Wilde at Swallow Chimney, where Eliza Clausen discovered the meaning of Sarah Barnes’ mysterious remarks about the party being held in the orchard, and yet being indoors, they went to see the birds’ Christmas tree.
Since morning many things had been added to it that were not intended for birds. Bundles, strange of shape, wrapped in green tissue-paper tied up with red ribbon and little sprigs of southern holly, hung to the lower branches, while Jacob, dressed as Father Christmas, stood by armed with a hooked stick, with which he loosened the bundles and dropped them into the waiting hands.
As it was impossible to tell from the shape of the parcels what they contained, there was a good deal of pinching and squeezing done, but beyond the feeling of sharp corners that might belong to either books or boxes, nothing could be discovered.
“It is too cold for you to stand out here to open your parcels,” said Gray Lady. “Suppose you take them in the living-room at the cottage, and while the girls open theirs you boys come for a little walk with me, for I have some work planned particularly for the boys of the Kind Hearts’ Club.
“Oh, do not look worried, I shall not keep you more than half an hour,” she said, as she saw the boys were quite as curious about untying their parcels as the girls.
So, following her lead, they trudged off up the lane, past the barn and woodpile, to where the brush on either side narrowed it to a mere path. Then, where another lane crossed it, the way grew broader again, and while one side was screened by woods, from the other you could look out upon a stretch of waste meadows and fallow fields.
There was only enough snow to crunch underfoot, and as Gray Lady walked ahead, a sprig of holly fastened at the neck of her gray chinchilla collar, and another in the close fitting hat of the same fur, her arms buried to the elbows in a great muff, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, and a rosy spot on each cheek made by the keen air, the boys cast many glances of genuine admiration at her. The big boys, especially, felt that she understood the situation exactly, by taking them to walk without the girls, giving them her confidence, and planning something for them to do that would be different from girls’ work, or, at least, apart from it.
“Perhaps some of the others have told you,” Gray Lady said to the big boys as they walked, “that I am very anxious not only to feed the small tree birds, that they may stay with us in winter, but to try and help the Grouse and Quail, so that, instead of those that have escaped the dangers of the hunting season being driven out by hunger and cold, they shall live on and increase, and become again the friends to the farmers that they were in the old days.
“You big boys all know how much complaint there is of all kinds of new bugs and worms and blights that discourage the farmers and leave but little profit in their crops? As you learn to watch wild birds and their habits, and realize the way in which they work for their living the year round, you will see that it is largely the lack of these old residents, these birds who were here before man came, that allows all the new-fangled bugs to gain such headway.
“Now, while it is quite easy for all of us to have some sort of a lunch-counter, either on a window-ledge, tree-trunk, or shed roof,—anywhere, in short, where cats will not venture,—feeding the larger game-birds is not such a simple matter, for until they thoroughly understand our motives, they will not come to us; we must take food to them.
“Birds that are hunted everywhere, for at least two months in a year, cannot be expected the day after the season closes to come boldly to our houses for food, as if they could consult a calendar, and say to one another, ‘To-day is December first, we may go and take a walk in the open road in safety.’
“Neither would they be safe, for there are always, I am sorry to say, cowards in every township who will set snares, and get by stealth what they dare not take openly. And, of the two, I think the snare a greater danger to the poor birds than the gun.”
“The trouble with feeding game-birds away from houses would be that, even if you knew their runs, and I think I know some pretty well, the feed would most likely blow away or be snowed under unless they ate it right away,” said Jack Todd, Tommy’s second eldest brother.
“Yes, that is one of the difficulties, but I think an idea that I have borrowed, and am trying now for myself, may partly solve the trouble. Look ahead of you, close to the rail fence. What do you see? No; don’t rush to the fence and trample the snow; keep on the lane side.”
“It’s some sort of a tent,” said Tommy; “I thought at first it was just a corn-stack with snow on it.”
“No; it isn’t a tent,” said Everett Judd, going closer; “it’s only bean poles stacked with the vines left hanging, two rows of them, so’s the snow won’t all drift in at one spot.”
“And what else?” asked Gray Lady. “Don’t you see cracked corn and mill sweepings scattered in between the poles? This is a feeding-station for our friends, the game-birds, if we can only make them understand that it is not a form of trap and does not hold a snare in disguise.”
Jack Todd, who had gone close to the tepee on one side, stepping on stones that he might avoid tracking the snow, and was examining the ground intently, suddenly cried out, “There have been mill sweepings here, because I can see some dust, but the grain is all gone, and I guess—no; I’m sure—there have been Grouse about, and they have fed here since snow fell, for there are tracks coming out from under the fence and going back the same way!”
“But how can you tell that they belong to Grouse?” asked Gray Lady, coming close to look at the prints and thinking in her excitement they might have been made by chickens.
“No, they are real Grouse tracks, for they’ve got their spiked snow-shoes on, and here’s the marks of the prickers!” And Jack pointed to the footprints of the brushed claws in triumph.
“This proves two points,” said Gray Lady, “that there are Grouse in the neighbourhood, and that they will take food if it is offered to them in the right way. I should like to put up a dozen of these feeding-stations, if you boys will help; you know the woods and brush-lots better than I do now, and you can select the places that will be suitable for these shelters and find what material there is close at hand of which they can be built.
“When this is done, I shall again have to depend upon you for keeping them supplied with food. If we find that the grain is eaten, I think that it should be renewed three times a week, so if six of you boys will volunteer for the service, two can go together, and it will only make one trip a week for each pair. If the snow is deep, you might possibly arrange to fit some boxes to your sleds to hold food, or, if the shelters are in rough ground, a bag fastened to the shoulders like a pedler’s pack might work well; for, in doing this work on a large scale, merely a pocketful of food will not suffice.”
“I will help,” said Jack Todd, after thinking a moment. “Me, too,” said Everett, and Irving Todd, together; then of course the others followed, Dave and Tommy anxious lest they should be left out, while Bobby and little Jared Hill, though too small to undertake to care for a station alone, were acceptable as companions for the big boys.
“We have the rest of this week, and all of next for a holiday,” said Jack Todd, “so suppose we take a tramp about the hill country on each side of the river valley to Centreville, that’s about five miles, and fetch axes with us. I know most of the people on the way, and, if we put the shelters somewhere near houses, we could distribute the food along, and they would let us keep it in one of the outbuildings, so that it would be handy in stormy weather. I’m pretty sure we can collect stuff enough as we go for the shelters. My uncle, who lives at Hilltop Farm, would give me corn-stacks for three or four. There’s a heap of slab-sides (the outside strip, with the bark, when a log is to be sawn into boards) left to go to pieces up by where the sawmill was last year; they will make fine wigwams, and there are plenty of cedars and birches, with brushy tops, for the rest. Then perhaps the folks along the line might be interested and rig a few up on their own account.”
“Thank you, Jack,” said Gray Lady, warmly; “you have caught the spirit of the idea and improved it already, for if we are to do the game-birds any real good, and establish the feeding plan permanently, the people all ‘along the line,’ as you call it, must be interested until not only Fair Meadows township, and the county, but all the counties in the state, are linked together in the work of restoration.
“Meanwhile, though, of course, everything that is done regularly is work, I really envy you boys some of the fun you will have in your winter tramps; sometimes you will be able to skate nearly all the way upon the river, and sometimes, if the snow is as deep as people are predicting, you may be able to go on snow-shoes.”
“Only I don’t think any of the fellows hereabouts own a pair of snow-shoes,” said Everett.
“Then they are the very things for Jacob to help you make if you come to any of our Saturday meetings,” said Gray Lady. “Jacob was born in Canada, and worked with fur trappers for several years, and though, perhaps, he may not be able to make them as well as when he was a young man, they would surely be better than nothing, and who knows but what one of the many things that the Kind Hearts will organize may be a Snow-shoe Club.”
Thus the big boys of Foxes Corner school found themselves interested and pledged in Gray Lady’s work without a suspicion of the “playing baby” of which they had such dread.
By the time Gray Lady and the boys returned to Swallow Chimney, the girls had opened their bundles, and besides little work-boxes, each with a silver thimble of the right size for the owner, and a pair of scissors that would “cut clean and not haggle,” as Eliza Clausen expressed it, there were books for all. Some were about birds, and others about flowers, trees, butterflies, and the real life out-of-doors that is more wonderful than any fairy-tale. Having disposed of their own presents, with many little shrieks of delight, the girls stood by, waiting for the boys to open their bundles. These were all long and flat, with a bunch in the centre, as if two objects of different shapes were fastened together.
Tommy succeeded in untying his first, skeining up the string so that he might have it for the re-wrapping. A strong, well-made knife, with two blades fell out, and under it was a hammer, a chisel, a half-inch auger, and a medium-sized cross-cut saw. Seeing Tommy’s gifts made the others pull open their packages hastily, with less regard for string and paper, to find that they also had the coveted tools.
“Now,” said Gray Lady, “you boys will be independent of your fathers’ tools when you take a bird-house home to finish, or wish to do a little bit of work for yourselves, as the girls will also be independent of their mothers’ work-boxes and thimbles; because, if the grown-up people are always having their tools borrowed or mislaid, they are apt to have a sort of grudge against both the work and the workers.”
Some of the boys looked at each other rather sheepishly, and wondered how Gray Lady knew that their fathers had said that “since the boys took to carpentering there hadn’t been a hammer or nail to be found nor a saw with the sign of an edge left on it.”
“By and by,” continued Gray Lady, “if you have the desire, you will all have a chance to earn other tools, and also make boxes in which to keep them.
“You may wonder why the Christmas tree bore no candy by way of fruit; that was because part of the fun for this afternoon will be making candy,—caramels, chocolate creams, nut taffy, and old-fashioned pulled molasses rope-candy,—so that, besides the making and tasting, you will all have something that you have made yourselves to give the people at home to-morrow, or put in their stockings if they are hung up. See! here are the boxes that Goldilocks has made to hold the candy!” There upon a tray were two dozen square boxes covered with green-and-white paper, and a row of red-paper hearts pasted across the top of each, with the words, “The Kind Hearts wish you a Merry Christmas,” printed in red.
“Did you make all those boxes yourself, Goldilocks?” asked Sarah Barnes, in amazement; “I don’t see how you could turn the corners so nice.”
“Not the boxes; you can buy them for very little at the factory. I covered them and put the hearts on, but Mother did the printing. It is easy enough if you take time. You see the two years that my feet wouldn’t go, I learned to make my fingers work for both.”
“The fire and pans, sugar, molasses, and nuts are all ready, but, before we become Miss Wilde’s guests and begin, for the candy-making and supper belong to her party, we must hold a short business meeting of the Kind Hearts’ Club, that we may decide how the Christmas money is to be spent.”
Gray Lady then sat down at the end of the room with Mrs. Wilde, while Goldilocks, the president, took her place at the head of the long table, with the vice-president, Miss Wilde, close at hand to prompt. Sarah, the treasurer, and Tommy, the secretary, were on opposite sides of the table facing each other, and all the others sat up very straight, wearing various expressions of importance that were quite amusing.
Goldilocks rapped on the table with her pencil, and said in a rather shaky voice, blushing rosy red as she spoke, “The meeting will please come to order and listen to the reading of the minutes of the last meeting.”
There had been but one previous meeting, that to arrange for the Christmas sale, and it had been informal, so that this was really the president’s first appearance in the chair, and, as she spoke, she kept her eyes fastened to the paper upon which Miss Wilde had written the order to be followed.
“Secretary will please read the minutes of the last meeting,” she said, after a pause.
The secretary looked around in a hunted sort of way, as if to find an open door through which he could escape, and, seeing none, got rather unsteadily upon his feet, opened the square blank-book that Gray Lady had given him for his records, fumbled with the pages, and then said, rather than read,—“We were all there. We all agreed to sell the things we’ve been making so as to get some money to feed birds, and buy things; and Gray Lady said we could do it in her house; the Saturday before Christmas was duly appointed, and Dave was to get the bills, to tell folks it was going to be printed down at the Chronicle Office, because it is his uncle runs it, and Gray Lady promised to give cakes and chocolate, in case folks were hungry.
“Respectfully submitted,
“Thomas Todd, Jr., Secretary, Amen!”
Gray Lady did not dare look at Miss Wilde during the reading of this report, but the children took it in perfect earnestness, and Goldilocks, having put the report to vote, as she had been told, proceeded to the next item before her and called, “Report of the secretary.”
Again Tommy fumbled, and, after looking in every page of the book but the ones that were written upon, suddenly burst forth,—“We had it, and we sold everything, besides some things we haven’t made yet. The people ate all there was, and took the other things home. It was a big cinch! Sarah Barnes has got the money in a box, and her father’s put it in the clock-case, except some of it that’s in dimes and nickels, and they’re in a bag in the dresser with the rye meal so’s no one’ll know. Gray Lady said that to-day we must each bring a paper, with written on it the way we wanted the money spent. We have. It was hard to write because some things we would like to have wouldn’t be nice to everybody all around, and that’s what it means to have a Kind Heart, grandma says.
“Yours truly,
“T. Todd.”
Action having been taken upon this, and the report accepted without a dissenting voice, the treasurer was called upon, and Sarah arose.
“The result of the sale of the Kind Hearts’ Club, which was held in the spacious residence of Mrs. Gray Lady Wentworth on Saturday, December 18th, was very gratifying to all concerned, and the proceeds, fifty dollars, are now in the hands of the treasurer awaiting the orders of this august body.
“Respectfully reported by
“Sarah Barnes.”
“How did you get yours together so slick and short, and full of nice words?” whispered Tommy to Sarah, across the table, his usual admiration for her now tinged with new respect.
“I didn’t,” she signalled back, not speaking audibly, but making the words with her lips. “I just told grandma how much money we had, and she worded it; they always talked reports that way at the missionary meetings and sewing societies when she was a girl, and she thinks folks are getting to be real slack talkers now.”
“A dis—cussion is now in order as to the spending of the money. Will Mr. Todd collect the papers and the vice-president kindly read them?” said Goldilocks, after looking at her paper again. And as Tommy passed a little box for the slips, Gray Lady came from the corner, so eager was she to hear what the children had in view.
Rose Wilde opened the papers, and the ideas on the first few, though good, presented nothing original: food for birds; books for the school; bird charts for the Bridgeton Hospital. Sarah’s paper suggested sleigh-rides and charts for the children in the Bridgeton Orphan Asylum, “because they don’t know any birds but English Sparrows.”
Tommy’s paper read:—“To fix the spring that used to come down Sugar Loaf Hill into a trough, before Bill Evans got mad with the Selectmen, and blocked it from coming through his pasture. There’s no water for drivers along the road above the Centre until you get to Beaver Brook, and that’s four miles, unless they get it from our well, which isn’t handy. My father could fix a big stone trough, ’cause he’s a mason, and birds and dogs and horses could drink. Birds need water to mix mud for their nests, too, especially Robins and Wood Thrushes. What is wanting, is to pipe the spring across Evans’ field,—his widow’d be pleased to have us; it’s her land. It’s two hundred feet, father says.”
“That is a very good, practical idea, Tommy,” said Gray Lady, earnestly; “we must consider this.”
Rose Wilde had now come to the last paper without discovering anything else of special novelty; this was written in little Clary’s stiff letters, and filled a whole sheet of paper.
“It isn’t for birds, it’s a blanket for Joel Hanks, the mail-man’s horse. It’s blind in one eye, and it’s a kind horse, and knows where all the boxes are. It’s got a cough now. Mr. Hanks was going to buy a new one (a blanket), and get shingles on that end of the barn where the horse stands, so’s the snow won’t drift in, but his wife got sick last summer, and had doctors and nurses, and that costs more money than a new horse, and a whole barn, my mother says. Mother says it isn’t Joel’s fault he’s poor; he isn’t slack, only some folks are marked for trouble. Last summer, lightning struck his haystack, and burned it and only his cornstalks were left. His horse is thin, too. Cornstalks aren’t filling for uphill work, my father says, and the mail-route is all either up or down, and in winter downhill is slippery, and just as bad. A horse is a lovely animal, and useful; I would like us to help this horse. He isn’t a bird, to be sure, but birds have feathers, and don’t have to drag a wagon uphill, against the wind, with bent axles. It will take three bundles of shingles for that barn-end and three lights of window-glass.”
There was silence for a moment, and Miss Wilde, looking at Gray Lady, while she waited for her to speak, saw tears in her eyes.
“Tommy’s idea about the fountain is excellent, and I think we can build it before spring, but the blind old horse and his patient master cannot wait, and they both serve us, each and all, in fair weather and foul.
“How is it, children? Shall we set aside ten dollars for the bird food for the winter, and then buy Mr. Hanks a ton of good hay, a horse-blanket, the three bundles of shingles, and the window-glass? And do you think that you big boys could put on the shingles if Jacob Hughes helped you?”
“You can just bet we will!” cried Jack Todd, and the others nodded approval.
This matter also was put to vote, and then a committee appointed, consisting of Miss Wilde and Jack Todd, to purchase blanket, hay, etc., while to Clary fell the inexpressible bliss of stopping at Mr. Hanks’ on her way home, telling him the news, and taking a blanket, warm but not new, that Gray Lady loaned until the new one could be had.
“Now for the candy!” shouted Tommy, whose spirits could keep in no longer.
“The meeting isn’t adjourned, yet,” said Goldilocks, reprovingly, clutching her paper and pounding on the table. “A motion is in order.”
“I move that we adjourn,” said Miss Wilde.
“Now somebody say, ‘I second it,’ ” insisted Goldilocks.
“I second it,” came a chorus. And any further remarks were lost in a shout that arose at the sight of Jim Crow, climbing along a shelf of the kitchen dresser, with one of the new pairs of scissors in his beak, that he had managed to take unobserved from nobody-knew-whose work-basket.