“That's so,” replied Peter thoughtfully. “I never happened to think of it before. Just the same, I don't see how you find food enough on the trees when they are all bare in winter.”
“Dee, Dee, Chickadee!
Leave that matter just to me,”
Chuckled Tommy Tit. “You ought to know by this time Peter Rabbit, that a lot of different kinds of bugs lay eggs on the twigs and trunks of trees. Those eggs would stay there all winter and in the spring hatch out into lice and worms if it were not for me. Why, sometimes in a single day I find and eat almost five hundred eggs of those little green plant lice that do so much damage in the spring and summer. Then there are little worms that bore in just under the bark, and there are other creatures who sleep the winter away in little cracks in the bark. Oh, there is plenty for me to do in the winter. I am one of the policemen of the trees. Downy and Hairy the Woodpeckers, Seep-Seep the Brown Creeper and Yank-Yank the Nuthatch are others. If we didn't stay right here on the job all winter, I don't know what would become of the Old Orchard.”
Tommy Tit hung head downward from a twig while he picked some tiny insect eggs from the under side of it. It didn't seem to make the least difference to Tommy whether he was right side up or upside down. He was a little animated bunch of black and white feathers, not much bigger than Jenny Wren. The top of his head, back of his neck and coat were shining black. The sides of his head and neck were white. His back was ashy. His sides were a soft cream-buff, and his wing and tail feathers were edged with white. His tiny bill was black, and his little black eyes snapped and twinkled in a way good to see. Not one among all Peter's friends is such a merry-hearted little fellow as Tommy Tit the Chickadee. Merriment and happiness bubble out of him all the time, no matter what the weather is. He is the friend of everyone and seems to feel that everyone is his friend.
“I've noticed,” said Peter, “that birds who do not sing at any other time of year sing in the spring. Do you have a spring song, Tommy Tit?”
“Well, I don't know as you would call it a song, Peter,” chuckled Tommy. “No, I hardly think you would call it a song. But I have a little love call then which goes like this: Phoe-be! Phoe-be!”
It was the softest, sweetest little whistle, and Tommy had rightly called it a love call. “Why, I've often heard that in the spring and didn't know it was your voice at all,” cried Peter. “You say Phoebe plainer than does the bird who is named Phoebe, and it is ever so much softer and sweeter. I guess that is because you whistle it.”
“I guess you guess right,” replied Tommy Tit. “Now I can't stop to talk any longer. These trees need my attention. I want Farmer Brown's boy to feel that I have earned that suet I am sure he will put out for me as soon as the snow and ice come. I'm not the least bit afraid of Farmer Brown's boy. I had just as soon take food from his hand as from anywhere else. He knows I like chopped-up nut-meats, and last winter I used to feed from his hand every day.” Peter's eyes opened very wide with surprise. “Do you mean to say,” said he, “that you and Farmer Brown's boy are such friends that you dare sit on his hand?”
Tommy Tit nodded his little black-capped head vigorously. “Certainly,” said he. “Why not? What's the good of having friends if you can't trust them? The more you trust them the better friends they'll be.”
“Just the same, I don't see how you dare to do it,” Peter replied. “I know Farmer Brown's boy is the friend of all the little people, and I'm not much afraid of him myself, but just the same I wouldn't dare go near enough for him to touch me.”