ILLUSTRATIONS
Chick, D.D. in his pulpit [Frontispiece]
Firs that pointed to the sky [2]
"Woodland Music after an Ice-Storm" [4]
Birds, too, that had lived in rough winds [25]
Floated beside him in the sea another gull, to whom he talked pleasantly [28]
After Larie found a clam, he would fly high into the air and then drop it [30]
It was not for food alone that Larie and his mate lived that spring [31]
One was named Peter, for his father [34]
The spot she teetered to most of all [43]
Dallying happily along the river-edge [47]
Immer Lake [51]
Two babies, not yet out of their eggshells, hidden among the rushes [53]
While their children were napping, Gavia and Father Loon went to a party [61]
At Work in the Plaster Pit [72]
The Hunting Flight [74]
They always chatted a bit and then went on with their work, placing their plaster carefully [77]
Quaint Clay Pottery [81]
A Famous Landmark [85]
Above all other creatures of this great land he had been honored [87]
The Yankee-Doodle Twins [90]
In this Mother Crow had laid her eggs [101]
"Kah! Kah! Kah!" he called from sun-up to sun-down [109]
Corbie slipped off and amused himself [116]
She wore, draped from her shoulders, snowy plumes of rare beauty [122]
Near Ardea's Home [124]
That criss-cross pile of old dead twigs was a dear home, and they both guarded it [127]
The Flying Clown [135]
Peaceful enough, indeed, had been the brooding days [141]
The little rascals could practise the art of camouflage [144]
Suppose you should find just one pair [153]
Through all the lonesome woods there is not one dove [158]
Once, so many flew by, that the sound of their wings was like the sound of thunder [161]
Oh, the wise, wise look of him [165]
Solomon knew the runways of the mice [168]
Those five adorable babies of Solomon [171]
He passed the brightest hours dozing [174]
It was time for the Feast of the Vagabonds [185]
Something south of the Amazon kept calling to him [189]
Nature has kept faith with him and brought him safely back to his meadow [195]
BIRD STORIES
I
CHICK, D.D.
Right in the very heart of Christmas-tree Land there was a forest of firs that pointed to the sky as straight as steeples. A hush lay over the forest, as if there were something very wonderful there, that might be meant for you if you were quiet and waited for it to come. Perhaps you have felt like that when you walked down the aisle of a church, with the sun shining through the lovely glass in the windows. Men have often called the woods "temples"; so there is, after all, nothing so very strange in having a preacher live in the midst of the fir forest that grew in Christmas-tree Land.
And the sermon itself was not very strange, for it was about peace and good-will and love and helping the world and being happy—all very proper things to hear about while the bells in the city churches, way, way off, were ringing their glad messages from the steeples.