CHICK, D.D. 



Yes, that was the Farmer Boy going away with a clat- 

 ter over the snow-crust; but who were these coming 

 through the air, with jerky flight, and with a jerky note 

 something hke ^'Twitterty-twit-twitterty-twit-twitter- 

 ty-twitterty-twitterty-twit"? They flew hke goldfinches, 

 and they sounded like goldfinches, both in the twitterty 

 song of their flight and their ^'Tweeet^^ as they called 

 one another. But they were not goldfinches. Oh, my, 

 no! For they were dressed in gray, with darker gray 

 stripes at their sides; and when they scrambled twitter- 

 ing down low enough to show their heads in the sunlight, 

 they could be seen to be wearing the loveliest of crimson 

 caps, and some of them had rosy breasts. 



The redpolls had come ! And they found on top of the 

 snow a pile of dusty sweepings from the hay-mow, with 

 grass-seeds in it and some cracked com and crumbs. 

 And there were squash-seeds, and sunflower-seeds, and 

 seedy apple-cores that had been broken up in the grinder 

 used to crunch bones for the chickens; and there were 

 prune-pits that had been cracked with a hammer. 



The joy-songs of the birds over the suet and seeds 

 seemed a signal through the countryside; and before 

 long others came, too. 



Among them there was a black-and-white one, with a 

 patch of scarlet on the back of his head, who called, 

 ^'Ping,'^ as if he were speaking through his nose. There 



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