176 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
societies, and so Gray Lady had made up her mind to let 
them ask to come to the class in the workroom as if it was 
a privilege they desired rather than as a favour to herself. 
One bit of carpentry she asked Jacob to undertake, 
that no time should be lost, and that was the bird lunch- 
counter for the school grounds. As the flagpole was 
fastened to the schoolhouse, Jacob had utilized the gnarled 
stump of a half-dead wild-apple tree, the bark of which 
was seamed and scarred by the initials cut on it by many 
generations of scholars. Above the platform, to hold 
the crumbs and grain, he had fastened, between the two 
remaining branches, a slanting roof made of some old 
mossy shingles, and at the edge of this he had stuck half 
a dozen crooked spikes to hold bacon rind or suet or 
anything, like chicken bones, that might be left from the 
dinner-pails, as many of the children, owing to distance 
from home, always brought their lunch to school during 
the winter and spring terms. 
This lunch-counter was in place when Gray Lady went 
to the school the first Friday afternoon in November, 
and she brought an additional surprise with her,—two 
pictures or charts that could be unrolled and hung on the 
wall like the great map.' Each of these charts held 
the pictures of some twenty-five birds done in colours and 
of natural size, and with each there was a little book 
telling about the birds. 
The charts were to be lent to the five other schools 
in the township in turn, but the children at Foxes Corners 
were so delighted with them that they resolved that the 
1 These fine charts may be purchased from the Audubon Society, 
State of Massachusetts. 
