A WINTER WALK 



205 



linger about the doorstep in early summer is not 

 at all to my taste. 



By the time I reached the Cathedral Pines I 

 must needs turn back. The wind was cold and 

 the sunshine had grown thin and watery. I fan- 

 cied I heard a chickadee, and noticed there was 

 a soft gray bunch moving in one 

 of the brookside trees. I looked 

 again and feebly tried to call the 

 bird. It seemed 

 absurd for me to 

 try to imitate the 

 tiny creature; I was 

 a million times his 

 size. One who has 

 the knack of whistling bird notes 

 once stood with me under the wil- 

 lows over yonder on the back of 

 this same brook. His quick eye 

 caught sight of the chickadee while 

 we were yet some distance off. He 

 began by whistling an s through his 

 teeth in close imitation of the bird's 

 conversational chirp. The friendly little fellow 

 answered with a brisk "chickadee-de-dee." We 

 stood motionless, the tops of our heads but a 

 few feet below the tree's lowest branches. The 

 whistler then began to call in the soft, plaintive 

 "fee-bee" which is the special spring note of the 

 chickadee, but is not forgotten even in winter. 

 The bird's reply was but a shade more delicate 

 and refined than the whistle. His behavior was 



THE CHICKADEE EYED 

 US CURIOUSLY " 



