“Yes. And you may have noticed that the whistle was a little like the quality of the chickadee’s whistle.”
“Why, doesn’t the chickadee call ‘Chickadee, dee, dee, dee, dee’?”
“Yes; and the titmouse talks in about the same ‘tone of voice’; but I mean the clear whistle of both of them. That will be one thing for you to find out, then. The chickadee is the black-capped titmouse, so you see they are related. Who saw what the titmouse looks like?”
Several hands were raised, much as in school, but no one could say much more than it was a little grayish bird with a tuft on its head. “Look it up in the bird book,” said Miss Haynes.
“Oh, we haven’t any bird books, Miss Haynes!”
“That’s so, you haven’t, and not a library in the whole town except the school library, and that is limited! Well, there is one encyclopedia, also a dictionary! I tell you what I’ll do. I will bring my Chapman’s Handbook and some field books I have to school; and if you will be careful of my books, I’ll let you look up any bird you like. Take careful notes of every point when you are out. Then look it up. I will show you how different the bills are and how you should look for size and shape and flight and coloring and everything. Oh, what is that, girls?”
This time it was Miss Haynes who asked the question. They were approaching the inland lake that lay ahead of them, its quiet waters only ruffled a little by the wind now, and its whole expanse shining in the morning sun. Reeds at the end nearest them grew up in shallow sands, and there it was that Miss Haynes had caught a glint of yellow.
“Where, Miss Haynes?” asked Jean.
“I caught a gleam of yellow; but those were blackbirds, weren’t they, that disappeared into that copse?”
“I did not notice, because blackbirds are so common; but we have yellow-headed blackbirds here and I imagine that is what you saw.”