92 EVERYDAY BIRDS 
example, we had a blizzard, with driving snow, 
the most inclement day of the winter. At seven 
o’clock, when I looked out, four downy wood- 
peckers were in the elm, all trying their best to 
eat, though the branches shook till it was hard 
work to hold on. They stayed much of the 
forenoon. At ten o'clock, when the storm 
showed signs of abating, though it was still wild 
enough, a chickadee made his appearance and 
whistled Phebe again and again—“a long 
time,” my note says—2in his cheeriest manner. 
Who can help loving a bird so courageous, “ so 
frolic, stout, and self-possest” ? Emerson did 
well to call him a “ scrap of valor.” Yet I find 
from a later note that “there were nothing like 
the usual number of chickadees so long as the 
fury lasted.” Doubtless most of them stayed 
among the evergreens. It is an old saying of 
the chickadee’s, frequently quoted, “ Be bold, 
be bold, but not too bold.” On the same day I 
saw a member of the household snowballing an 
English sparrow away from one branch, while 
a downy woodpecker continued to feed upon the 
next one. The woodpecker had got the right 
idea of things. Honest folk need not fear the 
constable. 
