A Piece of Suet 



' RiTH Marshall 



Lruic Tcclmical School. Cliicaj^'O 



The initial cost was ten cents. We, three bird lovers, back 

 in the early days of last January, decided that we must feed the 

 birds that winter. Our landlady, like Barkis, being willin', we 

 tied pieces of the suet on the branches of small elm trees in the 

 back yard where the}^ were in A^iew from some of the up])er win- 

 dows. Here they dangled, or the pieces which replaced them 

 (another dime's worth) till the buds had swollen in the spring 

 and the young leaves of May had hidden the last scraps. Once 

 a bone was added, and once a bunch of wild smilax berries found 

 on a winter walk in January. 



The food was soon discovered by the birds. The dow^ny wood- 

 pecker was the first visitor that we noticed, and the most frequent. 

 Sometimes three or four were there at a time. There were chicka- 

 dees and nuthatches almost as often. Downy drove the nuthatch 

 away sometimes; and one day I noticed that he for she) likewise 

 drove away the English sparrows that were always hanging about, 

 but never quite daring to take that perilous swing on the dangling 

 suet. There was hardly a morning throughtout the remainder 

 of the winter when we did not hear the !'yank, yank" of the nut- 

 hatch at sunrise, or see some fluffy but cheerful bird getting his 

 breakfast at our expense. As dusk fell at the end of the day 

 they were often seen. How many came, and how often, we do 

 not know; for it was onl}^ occasionally during those busy days 

 that we could stop to watch them. But it was very alluring, 

 this watching for the birds. Often I seated myself at the type- 

 writer to compose a business letter; or, pad in hand, I tried to 

 finish those belated Christmas notes. Then would come a joyful 

 "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" outside and I must drop everything to 

 watch by the window. Sometimes I seated myself by the other 

 window with the Outlook or some other improving literature 

 which needed to be read; but the suet was not in sight and my 

 thoughts would wander. All work in that room had to be done 

 at night when there were no interruptions. Many a day I watched 

 the birds and let the newspaper with its dreary news of the Great 

 War drop from my hand; the world was a good place to live in 

 after all. On Sundays I gave my undivided attention to our 

 boarders. Then I seated myself on the window box in the sunny 



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