CHICKADEE 



69 



were building their house upon the sand ! Any crea- 

 - ture without wings 



Would have known 

 Hhat. The birds, how- 

 ever, because they 

 have wings, seem to 

 have lost the sense of 

 such insecurity, often 



] placing their nests as 

 it' they expected the 



' nests themselves to 

 take wings and fly to 



\ safety when the rains 

 Descend and the winds 

 come. 

 j This shaking stub 



, of the chickadees was standing directly beneath a 

 great overshadowing pine, where, if no partridge 

 bumped into it, if two squirrels did not scamper up 



1 it together, if the crows nesting overhead in the pine 



' did not discover it, if no strong wind bore down upon 

 it from the meadow side, it might totter out the 

 nesting-season. But it didn't. The birds were leav- 

 ing too much to luck. I knew it, and perhaps I 

 should have pushed their card house down, then 

 and there, and saved the greater ruin later. Perhaps 

 so, but who was I to interfere in their labor? 



Both birds were at the work when I discovered 

 them, and so busily at it that my coming up did not 



