n8 Bird Comrades 



a dozen or more degrees below zero, and had held it there 

 quite too long for our comfort. More than once had he 

 shrieked and blustered and stamped his feet incontinently, 

 and more than once sent his legiona of wind, sleet, and 

 snow howling through the leafless woods. Everybody 

 in our central latitudes knows what an explosive old 

 fellow the Frost King is, and how fierce and savage he 

 can become let the mood once seize him. 



Sometimes, too, by the hour he had ground his ice 

 crystals to powder in mid-air and hurled them to the 

 earth, covering its surface with a robe of purest white, 

 thus proving that, with all his rudeness and bluster, he 

 is an old gentleman of aesthetic tastes. One evening his 

 mood became blander, and he dropped his crystals from 

 the sky in large, damp flakes, which clung tenaciously 

 to the branches and twigs; then during the night his 

 breath became chilled and froze the snowy cylinders, 

 and when morning broke the woods were a miracle of 

 loveliness, every leaf and twig bearing a ridge of gleam- 

 ing pearls, while the sylvan floor was pure white. Soon 

 the sun was shining from an unmarred sky, and the 

 snow-clad earth smiled back in shimmering recognition. 

 It was a day for worship in God's first sanctuary. 



Yet it was a day for watching the gambols of the 

 birds, and such occupation by no means interfered with 

 the spirit of worship. In the depths of the woods the 

 white-breasted nuthatches were holding a friendly inter- 

 view. How affectionately they talked to one another 

 in idioms all their own, saying " Hick! hick! " and " Yank! 



