Chickadee 
work. Hers was the real interest, the real anxiety ; 
and hers the initiative. To be a male and show off! 
That’s the thing. To be a male and let your wife 
carry the baby! The final distinctive difference be- 
tween a truly humanized, civilized man and all other 
males of every order, is a willingness to push the 
baby carriage. 
The finer the feathers or the song among male 
birds the less use they are in practical, domestic ways. 
Fine beaux, captivating lovers, they become little else 
than a nuisance as husbands. One of my friends has 
been watching a pair of bluebirds building. The male 
sat around for a week without bringing in a feather. 
Then one day he was seen to enter the hole, after his 
busy mate had just left it, and carry out a beakful of 
grass which he scattered to the winds in pure per- 
versity, criticising her bungling work, maybe! More 
likely he was jealous. 
Chickadee was no such precious fool as that. He 
was doing something ; trying to drown his regret for 
the departing honeymoon in hard labor, not, however, 
to the danger of his health. 
I sat a long time watching the work. It went on in 
perfect silence, not a chirp, not the sound of a flut- 
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