A SILVER-TONGUED FAMILY 99 



way on me and squeezed my leg so that it couldn't 

 be mended ; so I was around home all the time. It 

 was a terribly cold day when the Robins came back, 

 along in the first part of March. If it hadn't been 

 for the Robins, anybody would have thought it was 

 January. But in January we don't have big Robin 

 flocks about here, only just twos and threes that pick 

 round the alder bushes and old honeysuckles for ber- 

 ries. It was such a cold day that the clothes froze to 

 the line so that mother couldn't take them off, and 

 we didn't know what to do. Well, we were looking at 

 them, mother and I, when a big Robin flew out of the 

 pine trees and hopped along the clothes-line as if he 

 wanted to speak to us. 'Maybe he's hungry,' said 

 mother. ' I guess he is,' said I ; ' the ground is too 

 hard for worms to come out, so he can't get any of 

 them. Can't I give him some of the dried huckleber- 

 ries?' We always dry a lot every summer, so as to 

 have pies in winter. Mother said I might, so I scat- 

 tered some on the snow under the pine trees, and we 

 went in the house and peeped out of the kitchen win- 

 dow. At first the Robins chattered and talked for 

 a while, looking squint-eyed at the berries, but then 

 the bird that came on the clothes-line started down 

 and began to eat." 



" How did you know that Robin from all the others? " 

 asked Dodo. 



'' He had lost the two longest quills out of his right 

 wing, and so he flew sort of lop-sided," said Rap readily. 

 " As soon as he began the others came down and just 

 gobbled ; in two minutes all the berries were gone, but 

 the birds stayed round all the same, hinting for more. 



