WINTER LIFE ON A COLLEGE CAMPtTS 221 



One day just before Christmas a boy shot Socrates. For 

 days his body lay in the rain and wind. At length one of 

 the professors saw it and picked it up saying, i i poor bird. ' ' 

 He laid it on a pile of coal with its face upturned to the 

 cold gray sky. Then a friend buried the dead bird ; buried 

 him beneath the locust tree on which he had loved to sit. 



So Xantippe was left alone. Perhaps she was feeling 

 sad this day while the jays were so noisy and the flickers 

 so full of life. Near by, the flock of meadow larks was 

 feeding. Out on the sunny side of a big hickory the sap- 

 sucker clung and drowsed. A little farther away Downy 

 and his companions were making their usual amount of 

 noise. From under the eaves of the new east building 

 came the sounds of cooing pigeons. Out in the open ground 

 the killdeers were calling. 



Suddenly in the midst of this joy and laughter, feeding 

 and calling, some boys came with their guns. Thick and 

 fast were the discharges, loud and terrible was the roar. 

 With loud shouts the jays fled screaming to the woods. 

 The flickers went racing off in long galloping sweeps, all 

 save one which, with broken wing, lay beating the ground. 

 The sapsucker was shot from his perch on the hickory. 

 Two of the meadow larks failed to escape. Of the unsus- 

 pecting pigeons nine gave up their lives. They fell here 

 and there. Their feathers were scattered on the walks, 



