UP THE CHIMNEY. 249 



uncertain as to the number of birds making 

 them. A second bird had entered the chimney. 

 Seen from outside, he had dropped into it, and, 

 watched by perturbed vision from below, he had 

 come down backward, hovering and fluttering 

 until, head toward the light, his tiny feet had 

 caught in the mortar, and every spine in his very 

 brief tail had been braced against the same 

 rough substance. Perfectly motionless, he clung 

 to the black wall as a tree toad sticks to a tree 

 trunk. His flat head, tiny beak, sooty brown 

 coat, shining in the glare from the sky, did not 

 combine well into a bird ; in fact, nothing in 

 their weird surroundings made these tenants 

 seem akin to birds. They were more like bats. 

 Outside, the hot sunlight and hazy blue sky of 

 early July hung over wood and meadow, lake 

 and distant mountain. Butterflies fluttered and 

 drifted in aimless flight over the sumacs, a hum- 

 ming bird buzzed in the deep blue larkspur flow- 

 ers, barn swallows cut fanciful curves over the 

 lake and back to their nest with its nestlings ; 

 while down in the shadowy fern land the veery's 

 tremulous music told of coolness and comfort. 

 How different this soot-lined tube of brick, lead- 

 ing down through ever-darkening gloom into an 

 unknown abyss of blackness and silence ! How 

 strange that this keen-eyed swift, which a mo- 

 ment ago was speeding through highest ether at 



