BIRD STORIES 



below to the blue sky above. A roaring Booooooom, 

 which was something like the waves rushing against a 

 rocky shore, and something like distant thunder, and 

 something like the noise of a great tree crashing to the 

 earth after it has been cut, and something like the sound 

 that comes before an earthquake. 



It is not strange that Chick did not know that sound. 

 No one ever hears anything just like it, unless he is out 

 where the snow is very light and very deep and covered 

 with a crust. 



Then, if the crust is broken suddenly in one place, it 

 may settle like the top of a puff ed-up pie that is pricked ; 

 and the air that has been prisoned under the crust is 

 pushed out with a strange and mighty sound. 



So that big Booooooom meant that something had 

 broken the icy crust which, a moment before, had lain 

 over the soft snow, all whole, for a mile one way and a 

 mile another way, and half a mile to the Farm-House. 



Yes, there was the Farmer Boy coming across the 

 field, to the orchard that stood on the sandy hillside 

 near the fir forest. He was walking on snowshoes, which 

 cracked the crust now and then; and twice on the way 

 to the orchard he heard a deep Booooooom, which he 

 loved just as much as he loved the silence of the field 

 when he stopped to listen now and then. For the win- 

 ter sounds were so dear to the Farmer Boy who lived at 



