THE BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE 



ONE cold winter day I had been kept in the house all 

 morning. My health had never been very good and 

 I had been suffering considerably from sore throat, rheu- 

 matism, etc. The most trying thing in the world for a 

 boy is to be kept indoors where it seems to him nothing 

 of any importance is going on and he knows there is so 

 much of interest outside. I was disconsolately looking out 

 of the window at the drifts of snow when mother stepped 

 to the door and threw out the crumbs she had brushed 

 from the table. The wind whirled these crumbs over 

 the snow until they were caught in an eddy near my win- 

 dow. Almost immediately a flock of half a dozen jolly little 

 birds with black heads, tails and wings alighted on the 

 snow and began picking up these crumbs and singing 

 "Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee" as happily as if they had been 

 invited to a banquet. Indeed they might well have thought 

 they had been invited to a banquet, for the winter had 

 been so cold and the snow so deep that it must have been 

 hard indeed to find food. 



These were chickadees. They said so themselves, as 

 plainly as could be, and then to prove the matter I asked 

 mother and she confirmed their word. I watched them 

 until they had cleaned up the crumbs and marvelled at 



816 



