Chickadee 
chickadee appeared. He (I say “he” knowingly ; 
and here he quite redeems himself) had a worm in 
his beak. His anxiety seemed so real that I began to 
watch him, when, looking down among the stones for 
a place to step, what should I see but his mate emerg- 
ing from the end of a birch stump at my very feet. 
She had heard the din and had come out to see what 
it was all about. At sight of her, he hastened with 
his worm, brushing my face, almost, as he darted to 
her side. She took it sweetly, for she knew he had 
intended it for her. But how do I know that? Per- 
haps he meant it for the young! There were no young 
in the nest, only eight eggs. Even after the young 
came (there were eight of them !), and when life, from 
daylight to dark, was one ceaseless, hurried hunt for 
worms, I saw him over and over again fly to her side 
caressingly and tempt her to eat. 
The house of this pair did not fall. How could it 
when it stood precisely two and a half feet from the 
ground! But that it wasn’t looted is due to the sheer 
audacity of its situation. It stood alone, against the 
road, so close that the hub of a low wheel in passing 
might have knocked it down. Perhaps a hundred 
persons had brushed it in going by. How many dogs 
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