WINTER BIRDS 3 



"a. tiny voice hard by. 

 Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, 

 Chic-chicadeedee; saucy note 

 Out of sound heart and merry throat." 



Of course this joyful little fellow who sings 

 his name from one year's end to the other 

 is an old friend of all of us, and as he 

 scurries about, 



" Hurling defiance at vast death; 



This scrap of valor just for play 



Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray," 



we read fearlessness in his twinkling eye 

 and warm friendship in his actions. From 

 this protecting patch of growth appears 

 another sweet- voiced bird — the song spar- 

 row ; later in the day while the winter is 

 young and when the sun remembers its 

 summer friends we may hear him singing 

 softly to himself — singing of the spring 

 to be. 



A few minutes more and we are in the 

 woods, bare now but beautiful, for we see 

 the grace of their many arms, which seem 

 to be imploring the north wind that rat- 

 tles them so cruelly to give them back 

 their leaves of which it has just stripped 

 them. As we are welcomed from the 

 alders and birches by the chickadee we are 



