“What made it make b’lieve dead?” asked Kitty.
“It didn’t make believe,” said mamma. “I think it was dizzy. Birds sometimes are dizzy. But if you had not found it, it would soon have frozen to death.”
Kitty named him “The Tramp,” and he lived in the bay window with mamma’s plants. This bay window was shut off from the rest of the room by glass doors. It was a sunny and fragrant home for the little chickadee, and a lucky bird he was to have it just then.
For on the first day of February it began to snow and snowed three days, and when it cleared there were piles and piles of snow.
Great flocks of birds then came about the house searching for food.
“We must feed them or they will die,” said mamma. “The snow is so deep they cannot find food.”
So Kitty scattered meal and hemp seed on the snow and tied meaty bones on the lilac and rose bushes, and there wasn’t a moment of the day when some blue jay, or snow bird, or chickadee, or robin, was not picking up grain, or pecking at the bones.
“That is the way to have birds in winter!” said Kitty.
The Tramp did not seem to care a fig about his relations till one day in March when a flock of chickadees flew past, [!-- original location of illustration THE TRAMP VISITS CHARLEY --] and he fluttered against the windows and begged to be let out.
