198 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
the young girl saw the birds, she gave an exclamation, 
half of pleasure at their plumage, half of sorrow that 
they were dead, for to keep everything alive and as happy 
as possible was her inherent nature. But she knew that 
these were game- or ‘‘ chicken-birds,”’ as she had once called 
them when a mere baby, whose fate was to be eaten, and 
that Tommy’s father had only followed a legitimate desire 
for outdoor life and its sports when he had tramped more 
than thirty miles for the hunting. So she merely said, as 
she smoothed the beautifully shaded feathers, “I wish 
the Kind Hearts’ Club could do something to make game- 
birds have a very comfortable, good time, the part of the 
year when they are not hunted; do you think we could, 
mother? For I don’t think that this shy kind of bird 
will come to the lunch-counter, and I’ve been wondering 
lately what they find to eat in such cold winters as the 
last. Miss Wilde has told me that for weeks last winter 
the snow was so deep that in going, from where she lived, 
a mile to school, she never even saw a fence top, so if 
game-birds ‘feed chiefly on the ground after the manner 
of barnyard fowls, roosting in low trees and bushes,’ as 
one of my books says, I do not see why they do not freeze 
and starve.” 
“That’s what Pop and Grand’ther and Joe were talking 
about last night,” said Tommy; ‘they said that they 
travelled over miles of stubble-fields and brush-lots where 
there used to be lots of birds, and now, in spite of the laws 
in our place that are down on pot-hunters and won’t let 
game be sold or carried away, and our having a keen 
county warden, the birds seem to be melting away just 
the same.”’ 
