4 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



to be killed, but that woodpeckers made no music, 

 while they carried away distressingly large quanti- 

 ties of fruit. It was then that I made my first 

 business proposition: "If you will make the boys 

 stop shooting woodpeckers, I will not eat another 

 cherry. The birds may have all of mine." 



My father said that was a bargain. I never 

 before noticed that cherries were so big, so red, 

 so tempting, while it seemed that all of our family, 

 helpers, and friends spent most of their time offer- 

 ing them to me. Our cook almost broke my heart 

 by baking a little cherry pie in a scalloped tart- 

 pan for me. I could not say a word, but I put 

 my hands behind me and backed away from that 

 awful temptation with tears in my eyes. At that 

 point my mother intervened. She said she had 

 decided that we had cherries enough for all of our 

 needs and for the birds as well, so she gave me the 

 pie. 



It is probable that this small sacrifice on my part 

 set me to watching and thinking about the birds, 

 which every day flashed their bright colours and 

 sang their unceasing songs all over and around 

 us. For years one pair of wrens homed over the 

 kitchen door, the entrance to their dwelling being a 

 knot hole in the upper casing. While the mother 

 bird brooded the father frequently spent an hour 

 at a time, often in the rain, on a wooden acorn 

 ornamenting the top of the pump on our back 

 porch, becoming so tame that he frequently 



