THE CLOCK STRIKES ONE 7 



kin, as the chickadees surely know. This much I am 

 quite sure of, however: that this little flock is a 

 family — a family of young chickadees and their two 

 parents, it may be, who are out seeing the world 

 together, and who will stay together far into the 

 cold coming winter. 



They are one of the first signs of the autumn to 

 me, and one of my surest, sweetest comforts as the 

 bleak cold winds come down from the north. For 

 the winds will not drive my chickadees away, no 

 matter how cold and how hard they blow, no matter 

 how dark and how dead the winter woods when, in 

 the night of the year, the clock strikes twelve. 



The clock to-day strikes one, and all is still with 

 drowsy sleep out of doors. The big yellow butter- 

 flies, like falling leaves, are flitting through the 

 woods ; the thistledown is floating, floating past ; and 

 in the sleepy air I see the shimmering of the spiders' 

 silky balloons, as the tiny aeronauts sail over on their 

 strange voyages through the sky. 



How easy to climb into one of their baskets, and 

 in the fairy craft drift far, far away ! How pleasant, 

 too, if only the noon of the year would last and last ; 

 if only the warm sun would shine and shine ; if only 

 the soft sleepy winds would sleep and sleep ; if only 

 we had nothing to do but drift and drift and drift ! 



But we have a great deal to do, and, we can't get 

 any of it done by drifting. Nor can we get it done 

 by lying, as I am lying, outstretched upon the warm 



