She took a handful of striped gray and white sunflower seed and sprinkled it on Billy’s new bird-shelf. “You’ll have to wait a while till the birds find out about the shelf,” she said, “but it doesn’t take them long.” Then she took the little green fir tree and some stout cord. She tied the wee tree to one side of Billy’s blind. She tied its trunk at top and at bottom with several twists of heavy string. It made the window pretty—almost as if one were looking out over the top of a fir tree. The doctor’s little girl paused after her work and smiled at Billy. “I think that’s nice, don’t you?” she asked.
Billy nodded. “What’s it for?” he inquired.
“You tie bits of suet lumps to its limbs,” she explained. “The birds will light on the branches. Suppose you cut up the suet into two or three-inch lumps. Tie string around each and tie the lumps to the different branches. Can you do it?”
Yes, Billy could. The little girl had to help a bit, but not so very much.
“The strainers are to be tacked up. You put seed into them. When it rains, the seed doesn’t get soaked. Birds don’t like the soaked seed, you know.” The strainers went at the other side of Billy’s blind, opposite the fir tree.
It seemed as if the bird window was all done but it wasn’t! The doctor’s little girl took a good-sized tree-twig that she had brought, and nailed this against the window frame to make a perch. There were three perches made this way. She put them near the two strainers and tied suet to each perch. She said that the woodpeckers would come to these tree-perches; they didn’t come to the fir-tree because—well, woodpeckers couldn’t.
When all this was done, the doctor’s little girl took something else from her pocket. It was what Billy thought—bird-seed. It was a mixture of seed: millet, wheat, rape, cracked corn. She said that one could get it mixed at a grain store—eight cents a pound. If Billy wanted her to, she’d buy some and bring it to him tomorrow, but for today all was done.
It was twilight and almost dark by now, so they shut down the window. The birds must all have gone off to shelter. It was too late to expect anything of the bird window that day, but the doctor’s little girl promised to put a bit of suet on a bush under Billy’s window as she went home. It was to attract the birds and call attention to the window.
That night when mother came home, she thought the bird window a splendid thing. Billy dreamed of it all night. Indeed, he could not wait for morning to come. He woke at four o’clock and kept wondering if any birds would come. Then, because he was so drowsy, he fell asleep. He woke with a sudden start just at sunrise. Was it true?—Yes, yes! Knock—knock—knock! What kind of bird was it? There was a bird at the suet that was tied to the perch at the window. That must be it! Billy sat up in bed and bent forward to look. There on the perch that was highest was a black and white bird with a bright scarlet cap—it was brother woodpecker busy eating a breakfast of suet!
My, how exciting! Billy hardly dared to draw a breath, he was so afraid that the woodpecker would see him and fly away. Billy had hardly been in his chair near the window for more than a few minutes when there was a flutter of wings and a strange little slate-gray bird lit upon another perch and circled it, making queer, cheerful little noises. The bird had a black head and it seemed full of sociable curiosity. Billy wondered what it was. He did not remember ever to have seen a bird like it before! He resolved to ask the doctor’s little girl what it was. And then came wee little birds that called dee—dee—dee. They were the chickadees, little gray birds with black hoods. They seemed very tame. They came in a cluster and besieged the limbs of the little green fir tree. While they were there, came birds like sparrows, too. They were not sparrows though—some of them were rosy red in color. Oh, they must be what the doctor’s little girl had called purple finches! My, how exciting! How they quarreled! What fun! They were all over the bird-shelf, eating the striped sunflower seed in a very hungry way. When a big blue jay came screaming toward a near-by tree, they flew off in a hurry and the blue jay with his crest acock carefully reconnoitered the premises and decided to eat from the bird-shelf too. Oh, wasn’t it gay! When the doctor came, he quite agreed that it was jolly and he brought a bird book from his little girl and a package of the mixed seed that he laughingly called “medicine.”