“When Father Tanager comes back, he is brave and red again, though it takes little Tommy Tanager two moultings to grow an equally red coat.

“Even with the more quietly marked birds their colours are less distinct after the summer moult, so that what is known as the bird’s perfect or typical plumage is in many species that of the nesting season alone.”

“I didn’t think that there was so much to know about birds; they seem to have ways of doing things just like people. I’d love to know all about them every Friday, but I suppose that’s too nice to happen,” said Sarah Barnes, as Gray Lady paused and moved her chair back from the bright light that was now shining through the door directly in her face, for the clouds had rolled away down behind the hills, leaving one of the clear, bright, early September afternoons when the sun lends its colour to the field of early goldenrod, until sunset seems to reach to one’s very feet.

“No, it isn’t too nice to happen,” said Gray Lady, laughing; “but it would certainly be very pleasant for me, also, if Miss Wilde could give you to me for an hour or so every other Friday, then perhaps some other day you could come to the General’s house and return my call, and see all the birds and pictures and books that belonged to my Goldilocks’ father. How would you like that?”

“Bully!” cried Tommy Todd, “and there’s more kinds of birds in the General’s old orchard than anywhere else hereabout. I haven’t ever taken any eggs from there,” he added hastily, “only jest peeked and watched, an’ once I got a three-story nest from there, along late in the fall when the birds were done with it. If I brought it along, ma’am, could you tell me what sort of a bird it belongs to? I can’t find out!” he added eagerly.

“Yes, I think I can tell you,” Gray Lady answered, “and I’m very glad if you know about my orchard and its tenants, because very likely you may be able to introduce me to some that I do not know.

“Now, children, before next week is over I will see Miss Wilde and tell her my plans, but one thing I will tell you now—I have a little daughter Elizabeth, whom Sarah Barnes calls Goldilocks. She is twelve years old, but because of an accident her back is not strong, and instead of running about as you do she has had to be wheeled about in a chair. I have taken her to the best doctors, and they say that she is getting well slowly, and that now all that she needs is to live out-of-doors and be with children of her own age, who will be kind and gentle to her, yet treat her as one of themselves. She cannot bear to hear of anything being killed or hurt, and she has been loved so well all her life that she loves everything in return.

“Will you come to the General’s house and help Goldilocks to grow strong and forget all the pain she has suffered?”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the reply as with one voice.

Sarah Barnes had the honour of taking Gray Lady’s hand as she went to the carriage, and Tommy Todd closed the door without any one giving him a hint.

Then, before closing the schoolhouse for the night, his special duty, he began a hunt for the rat-trap, which he soon found in the wood-box, but instead of taking the rats home as usual for Mike, his father’s terrier, to “have fun” with, he drowned them as quickly as possible in the brook that ran below the hill, for he thought to himself as they were things that must be killed Goldilocks would think this the kindest way.

Not only did Miss Wilde hear every detail of Gray Lady’s visit from her scholars, but the middle of the following week she received a letter from Gray Lady herself as well as one from the president of the school board.

Gray Lady wrote that if she could succeed in interesting the children of the school at Foxes Corners in the birds and little animals about, then she meant to arrange another season so that the other four schools in the scattered district might have the same opportunity. For this reason she had asked and obtained leave of the school committee to have two Friday afternoons of each month given to the purpose. She also promised to send some bird books and pictures to the school and a large wall map of North America, so that after the children had learned to know a bird by sight and name they might trace its journeys the year through, and thus realize to what perils it is exposed.

Then followed the most interesting part of the letter to Miss Wilde and her children, and this is what it said:—

It was Wednesday when Miss Wilde told the children of the invitation, just before she rang the bell for noon recess. Then she asked all those who wished to go to the Orchard Party to stand up, and instantly thirteen of the fifteen present were on their feet, the two exceptions being Eliza and Dave.

Miss Wilde of course noticed this. However, she said nothing about it, knowing that with these two discontented ones the reason would be told before long and that very plainly. But when they returned from dinner she gave each one a sheet of clean paper and told them to write answers either of acceptance or regret, as they felt inclined, to Gray Lady, first writing a short note upon the blackboard herself so that they might see how to begin and end, and where to put the date, because some children who can spell separate words do not know how to put them together so as to express clearly and concisely what they wish to say in a note.

Soon thirteen pens were scratching away industriously, while Eliza and Dave fingered theirs, fidgeted with the paper, and wriggled in their seats as if uncertain what to say or whether they would write at all.

Finally the teacher said, “If any one of you is needed at home on Saturday or cannot for any other reason go to the party, you may write that, but each child must send a reply; and be very careful, for I shall send the notes as they are written without corrections.”

Sarah Barnes was deputed to collect the papers, and after school was dismissed Miss Wilde glanced over the notes before enclosing them in one large envelope. Eliza’s read:—

Miss Wilde’s first impulse was to leave out this curiously worded and badly spelled letter; then, as she read it a second time she smiled and said to herself, “Who knows but what this note will give Gray Lady a good idea of the other side of the question and of the objections she will meet?”

Dave’s note was no more agreeable, though expressed rather more clearly:—

This note also went with the others, but by Friday morning the two children, who had heard nothing talked of for two days but the party, began to wish that they were going, Eliza especially, for her mother said that morning, “You weren’t smart to refuse; you could have had a peep inside the General’s house, maybe, and I don’t believe she’d dassed said a word about birds on hats, with one of the company wearing ’em!”

On Friday afternoon, when Miss Wilde asked the children to meet her at the hedge half a mile above the schoolhouse at ten o’clock the following morning, so that they might take a short cut across the fields, she noticed that Eliza and Dave hung behind the others, who as usual raced off in different directions toward home, and then Eliza, who was walking beside her, mumbled something about “wishing she hadn’t refused and supposing that it was too late now,” etc.

“Of course, it is not very polite to change one’s mind about an invitation,” said the teacher, “but Gray Lady wrote me last night that if you and Dave should feel differently about wishing to come, I might bring you, but that after to-morrow it would be too late.”

At ten o’clock this bright September morning Gray Lady came out on the porch of the big white house, with the row of columns in front, that was known the country-side over as “the General’s.” There was a wide lawn in front of the house and on either side, arched by old elms, the leaves of which were now turning yellow, but there had been no frost and the flowers in the buds were still bright.

Back of the house was a flower garden, with grape and rose arbours on either side, under which chairs and little tables were placed invitingly. Beyond this garden was a maze of fruit bushes and the young orchard, and beyond this the old orchard, now running half wild, stretched downhill toward the river woods.

A lovelier place could not have been planned for either children or birds, or the people who love both, nor a more perfect place for all three to live together in peace and comfort.

Goldilocks was already out, and her faithful Ann Hughes was pushing her chair to and fro, for when one is eager and impatient it is very hard to have to sit still. Goldilocks was growing stronger every day and could walk a few yards all alone, but it tired her, and her mother thought the excitement of seeing so many children would be enough for one day.

Presently a head, with a cap on it, bobbed up over the last hump in the road below the house, and then another with a ribbon-trimmed hat upon it, the pair belonging to Tommy Todd and Sarah Barnes, who led the procession; and in a few minutes more the entire group had reached the porch and Sarah Barnes was repeating their names to Goldilocks. The five boys rather hung back, but that was to be expected of them.

As a little later Gray Lady led the way down to the garden, she turned to Ann and gave her some directions for the house and was going to push the chair herself when Tommy Todd came forward and seized the handle, saying earnestly, “I can do that first-rate. When dad fell out of the haymow and broke his leg, I used to tote him all round the farm, and never bumped him a bit,—only in ploughed land and off roads you’ve got to go jest so easy.” And to illustrate he raised the front wheels of the chair and bearing on the handles lowered them again as they left the garden path for the rough grass-grown track that led to the orchard. Goldilocks looked up and smiled at him, and then at Sarah and Miss Wilde, who walked one on each side, neither of the four dreaming at that moment how much happier their lives would be because they had met.

“Why, the bars are gone and there is a brand new gate!” exclaimed Sarah Barnes, as they reached the opening in the stone fence that had been spanned by rough-hewn bars ever since she could remember. There, between strong cedar posts, hung a rustic gate, and above it was a double arch of the same material, into which the word BIRDLAND was interwoven in small sticks of the same wood.

“That is a surprise that Jacob Hughes made for to-day, for this is my birthday party, you see, and some day mother is going to have a flagpole for Birdland with an eagle on top. Jacob is Ann’s brother,” she continued by way of explanation. “He used to be a sailor once, but now he’s come to live with us always. He is a carpenter, too, and he can whittle almost anything with his knife, and he makes the most beautiful bird-houses. I should really like to live in one myself—that is, of course, if I were a bird!”

“If you were a bird you’d be a bluebird, I guess,” said Sarah Barnes, as she glanced at the deep blue sailor suit, with the crimson shield in front, that Goldilocks wore.

“I’d rather be a big owl,” said Tommy Todd, “and sit up in a tree in the woods and call out ‘Woo-oo-oo’ when people go by in the dark and scare ’em.” And he gave such a good imitation of an owl’s hoot that Bruce, the Collie dog, who always either walked or sat beside Goldilocks’ chair, began to bark and circle wildly about, nose in air.

“I’m very sure I shouldn’t care to be an owl, for then I should have to eat meadow-mice and moles, and swallow them, fur and all, and that would taste so mussy,” said Goldilocks.

So it came about that all the children were in very good humour when they entered Birdland on Goldilocks’ birthday, and Gray Lady smiled happily as she looked at the group with her precious daughter in the midst and thought that her experiment had begun with a happy omen.

Though many of the apples that grew on the trees of the old orchard would not have taken prizes at the country fair, they looked very tempting to the youngsters,—Baldwins, Spitzenburghs, and russets of two sorts, the green and the golden, were still on the trees, but there were great heaps of earlier varieties on the ground, and Jacob and another man were busy sorting them over.

Reading in the children’s eager faces what they would like to do, Gray Lady said, “You may run off now and have all the apples you want, and an hour for playing ‘hide-and-seek,’ ‘red lion,’ or ‘Indians,’ in all the orchard and meadows and woodland yonder, and then when you hear a horn blow come back and you will find us over in the corner where the table and seats are placed.” Then, seeing that some of the girls had brought wraps or jackets with them, and also that the Sunday-best hats that they wore would be in the way of romping, Gray Lady told them to hang them on the tree nearest where she and Miss Wilde were seated.

At first Sarah and Tommy were not going with the others, but Goldilocks insisted that they should leave her in a gap where the rows of trees formed a long lane through which she could see across the meadows to the woods.

These two children were quite at home in this neighbourhood, for had there not been a particular gap in the old fence through which they had taken a “short cut” down to the village ever since they could remember?

“I wonder if Goldilocks knows that Quail nest in this brush and scratch around here like chickens,” said Tommy, as they left the orchard for the meadow.

“Yes, and you got that three-story nest of yours last fall in the bough-apple tree,” said Sarah.

Eliza and Dave soon forgot all about their reasons for having at first refused to go to the party, and when they heard the horn tooting it seemed so soon that they could hardly believe that it was noon and luncheon time. And such a luncheon as it was! Around the trunk of the largest tree in the orchard, four tables were so placed that when covered they looked like one big table, with the tree growing through the centre.

The white cloth was bordered with russet and gold beech leaves, bleached ferns, and the deep red leaves of maples and oaks; grapes and oranges were piled high in baskets made of hollowed-out watermelons. Hard-boiled eggs were arranged in nests built of narrow, dainty sandwiches, little iced cakes rested upon plates of braided corn-husks, and Goldilocks’ birthday cake, with its twelve candles, was ornamented with little doves made of white sugar. When, last and best of all, the ice-cream appeared, without which no party is complete, it was in the form of a large white hen with a very red comb, while from beneath her peeped ice-cream eggs of many colours, chocolate-brown, pistachio-green, lemon-yellow, and strawberry-red, the nest being woven of spun sugar that so closely resembled fine straw that it was not until the children had tasted it that they were convinced that it really was candy.

Country children are usually very silent when on their good behaviour, but such ice-cream had never been heard of either at Foxes Corners, the Centre, or the near-by manufacturing town, and muffled “ohs” and “ahs” of satisfaction would break out until, Miss Wilde having given no rebuking glance, a perfect babble of enthusiasm arose that lasted until the meal was ended.

“Why, what is that?” asked Ruth Banks, glancing as she spoke toward a very old tree that, having partly blown over, was resting on four of its branches that served as legs and made it appear like some strange goblin animal. On the upper side of this fallen tree, built around an upright branch, was a platform made of old wood with the bark on, and on the different sections of this were peanuts, shelled corn, pounded up dog crackers and buckwheat, while on a series of blunt spikes driven into the branch, were some lumps of suet and bits of bacon rind. As Ruth spoke a little black-and-white bird, with short tail and legs, was picking vigorously at the suet, using his stout bill with the quick sharp blows of a hammer.

“That? Oh—” said Goldilocks, “that is another birthday surprise that mother and Jake made for me. That is, mother planned it, and Jake did the work. It is a birds’ lunch-counter, and this winter we are going to keep all the different kinds of food on it that the birds like, so that they need never leave us because they are hungry.”

“There’s lots of things all around now that they can eat,” said Tommy Todd.

“Yes, of course, but we want them to become accustomed to the table, to know where the food is before they need it and think about going away, and wild birds are always suspicious of new things,” said Gray Lady.

There was one more feature of the luncheon, but, as it was something that could not be put upon the table, it was hung in the tree overhead. This thing looked like a great bunch of gayly coloured autumn leaves tied tight together, and from it hung a number of red strings, as many in fact as there were people at the party.

Gray Lady explained that each child in turn was to pull a string and, as they held back as if in doubt as to the result, she herself pulled the first cord and out dropped from the ball a long motto in yellow-fringed paper that, on being unrolled, contained beside the snapper a little paper roll on which was printed, “I am Mazulm, the Night Owl,” and when Gray Lady carefully unfolded the paper it proved to be a cap with strings, shaped like an owl’s head, which seemed to the children to wink its yellow tinsel eyes as Gray Lady placed it upon her fluffy hair.

Then everybody pulled a string, and soon there hopped about a startling array of birds with human legs and arms, for every one entered fully into the fun of the thing, even quiet Miss Wilde wearing her Blue Jay cap and calling the bird’s note with good effect.

“Now run about and see all that you can before playtime is over, and we go into the study for our first bird lesson,” said Gray Lady.

“I wish we could have a lunch-counter for birds at our school,” said Sarah, “but we haven’t any near-by tree.”

“Perhaps you may be able to have one—a tree is not always necessary. I have several ideas for lunch-counters in my scrap-book,” said Gray Lady.

As the children walked along, some swung their hats by the elastics in rhythm with their steps. The elastic of Eliza Clausen’s hat was new and strong and all of a sudden it gave a snap, and the hat flew into Goldilocks’ lap. She had stretched out her hand to return it to its owner when she glanced at the hat, and her whole face changed and the smile faded from her lips. “Oh, Eliza!” she exclaimed appealingly, “you don’t know that those feathers on your hat are wings of dear, lovely Barn Swallows, or you wouldn’t wear it, would you?”

“ ’Course I do,” said Eliza, taken off her guard and at heart now provoked and ashamed at having her hat seen, “and I’ve got lots more kinds at home. Ma’s got feathers on her hat, too—tasty feathers. Miss Barker from New York that boarded with us gave ’em to her; they cost a lot and stick right up in a nice stiff long bunch. They’re called regrets, and they don’t grow round here, but they’re ever so stylish.” And Eliza held her nose in the air with a sniff of scorn, a vulgar travesty that the pounding of her heart belied.

“I don’t think those stiff regret feathers in your mother’s hat are stylish,” said Sarah Barnes, quickly taking up the cudgels; “I think they look like fish bones!” Then Eliza began to cry, and both Goldilocks and Sarah looked distressed.

Gray Lady hesitated a moment and then said, “Eliza, dear, I’m sorry that this has happened just now. It is not generally a good plan for us to criticise one another’s clothing or habits, but there are times when it is necessary. Sooner or later I should have told you the reasons why people who stop to think and have kind hearts are no longer willing to wear the feathers of wild birds, and I’m sure that presently, when you stop and think, you will see that it is so.”

Then they all walked very quietly up to the library that had belonged to Goldilocks’ father, and when they were seated and had time to look about they saw that the walls above the book-cases were covered by pictures of birds in their natural colours.

On the table at one end of the room were piled some books, and by this Gray Lady seated herself, her scrap-book by her elbow,—a book, by the way, with which, before another season, they were to become as well acquainted as with their friend herself.

Tommy Todd could not take his eyes from a picture of a tall white bird, with long neck and legs and a graceful sweep of slender feathers that drooped from its back over the tail. Holding up his hand, which at school always means that you wish to ask a question, Tommy said, “Please, what is that bird’s name? There’s a big, dark, gray one, shaped something like it, that I’ve seen by the mill-pond, but it’s not half so pretty. I’ve never seen one like this, here.”

When the children had satisfied their curiosity by looking about the room at the pictures and stuffed birds in cases as much as they wished and were comfortably seated, Gray Lady drew a chair into the midst of the group and began to talk, not a bit like a teacher in school, but as if she had dropped in among them to have a little chat.

“When one has looked at something from one side all one’s life it is hard to realize that there is another,” she said, smiling brightly at Eliza and Dave, who chanced to be sitting together and who looked not only unhappy but very sullen.

“I have always happened to be with people who love everything that lives and grows. They have always been kind to birds because it never occurred to them to be otherwise. In watching them and learning their ways, they also learned that these winged beings had another value beside that of beauty of colour and song, that by fulfilling their destiny and eating many destructive bugs and animals they not only earn their own livelihood but help keep us all alive by protecting the farmers’ crops.

“Thus, when I went down to the school at Foxes Corners, I took it too much for granted that you all cared for birds and would naturally wish to protect them. I thought that all I had to do was to try to tell you interesting stories that would help you to remember the names and habits of the various birds. But Eliza’s hat, and a little note that I received from one of the boys which showed that he and his family considered all birds that are not good to eat as worse than useless, show me that some of you look at birds from another side. Those that do certainly have a right to, as a lawyer would say, have the case argued before them so that they may see for themselves why they are on the wrong side of the tree.

“The birds were on the earth before man came, and in those far-back times they were able to look after and protect themselves, because the warfare they waged was only with animals often less intelligent than themselves. Do you remember the beautiful allegory of the creation of this earth written in Genesis which is also written and proven in the records the geologists find buried in the earth, and quarry from the rocks themselves?

“When man came, in order that he might live comfortably and safely, many of his improvements brought death to his feathered friends. Take, for example, two objects that you all know,—the lighthouse at the end of the bar by the harbour head, and the telegraph and telephone wires that follow the highway near your schoolhouse. Men have need of both these things, and yet, in their travels on dark nights, thousands of birds, by flying toward the bright tower light that seems to promise them safety, or coming against the innumerable wires, are dashed to death.

“Of all the mounted birds that you see in the cases there, not one was deliberately killed by my husband, but they were picked up and sent to him by various lighthouse keepers along the coast who knew his interest and that he would gladly pay them for their trouble. By and by, when we come to the stories of the flight of some of those birds, you will be amazed to see what frail little things have ventured miles away in their travels; even tiny Humming-birds came to my husband in this way. This danger grows greater every day because of the many tall buildings in the cities that are almost always located by rivers, for to follow these waterways seems to be the birds’ favourite way of travelling.

THE USES OF BIRDS

What the Birds do for us

“Perhaps even those of you who love birds have never thought very much about their ways of life. You are so accustomed to seeing them fly about, and to hearing them sing, that you do not realize what a strange, unnatural, silent thing springtime would be if the birds should all suddenly disappear.

“Yes, indeed, the world would be sad and lonely without these beautiful winged voices. But something even more dreadful would happen should they leave us: the people of the world would be in danger of starving, because the birds would not be here to feed on the myriad worms and insects that eat the wheat and corn and fruits upon which we, together with other animals, depend for food.

“The insects gnawing at the roots of the pasture grasses would destroy both the summer grazing for the cattle and the hay for winter fodder; if worms destroyed the forests, there would be no trees for firewood, and also the lack of shade would make the sources of our rivers dry up and we should soon suffer for water.

“Girls and boys might never think of this, but the Wise Men who live in Washington, and form the association known as the Biological Survey, as well as those of the Departments of Agriculture in each state, thought of this long ago.

“They have worked hard and proved the truth of this whole matter, and now know exactly upon what each kind of bird feeds; and laws are everywhere being made to protect the useful birds from people who are either so stupid or so vicious that they think a bird is something to be shot or stoned, and that the robbing of nests of eggs is a clever thing to do.

“Any child who stops to think must realize one thing: As almost all birds live on animal food during the nesting season, and feed their young with it, and many kinds eat it all the year, it follows that the more birds we have the fewer bugs there will be.

“Also those birds who feed on seeds and wild fruits destroy in the winter season quantities of weed seeds that would spring up and choke the crops, while they sow the seeds of wild fruits and berries, because the pits in these seeds, being hard, are dropped undigested.

“ ‘But,’ says some one, ‘the Robins and Catbirds came in our garden and bit the ripe side of the strawberries and cherries that father was growing for market, and we had to shoot them to make them stay away.’

“This is all true: some birds will steal a few berries, but for this mischief they do good all the rest of the long season; so pray ask your father to put only powder, a ‘blank cartridge,’ as it is called, in the gun, that it may give the birds warning to keep off, but not kill them; and let him save all the bullets and shot for the Coward Crow, himself a nest robber, the Great Horned Owl, the Hen and Chicken Hawks, and the English Sparrow.

“In the short stories that I am going to read or tell you of the birds, I will try to speak of the chief food of each, so that you may put a good mark beside its name in your memory, and try to realize that these birds, beautiful as many are, still have a deeper claim upon you. I wish you to see that they, as well as you, are citizens of this great Republic and do their part for the public good, which, next to the care and love of home, should be the chief ambition of us all, men or women.

“The wise men know this and they have made laws to protect the birds and other animals from cruelty and destruction, just as they have made laws to protect all other citizens. Listen to what your state forbids you to do,—to the laws that if you break you must and should be punished:—

WARNING! WHAT THE LAW OF YOUR STATE SAYS ABOUT SONG-BIRDS

“No person shall kill, catch, or have in possession, living or dead, at any time, any wild bird other than a game-bird, nor any part thereof, except the English Sparrow, Crow, Great Horned Owl, or the Hawks, other than the Osprey or Fish Hawk. No person shall take, destroy, or disturb, or have in possession the nest or eggs of any wild bird, and the sale of these birds or shipment out of the state is forbidden.

Hunting or shooting on Sunday is forbidden.

“It is unlawful to kill Fish Hawks, Eagles, Gulls, Terns, Loons, Divers, Grebes, Doves, Wild Pigeons, Yellowhammers, Meadowlarks, or Herons at any time. (These are not game-birds in the reading of the law.)

“We are living in the state of Connecticut, but this is the substance of the law concerning the taking of eggs or birds other than game-birds (except when the Wise Men need them for Museums and have special permission) in the greater number of states.

“Tommy Todd, will you kindly go to the coloured map hanging on the door yonder and point out as I read, those few states that allow the killing of song-birds. This will be much easier than for you to learn the names of those wise states that, like our own, give citizen birds full protection.

“The east and middle west stand solid for protection, so you must begin on the Canadian boundary with North Dakota, then follow Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory, a bad blot in the centre of the map, but perhaps some day soon, if all the school children there learn about the birds, they will beg their fathers and uncles who go to the legislature to make laws to protect their birds also. For if they wait until they themselves grow up, some kinds of birds may have gone forever and it will be too late.

“Fortunately, you see, there are states next that form a sort of bird bridge of refuge; and then comes New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana, without good laws; but fortunately for the coast birds, Washington, Oregon, and California are on our side, and it is the duty of every boy and girl as well as every man and woman to learn the laws of the state where they live, and keep them.

CRUELTY TO WILD ANIMALS

“There are many children of foreign birth who perhaps would not break the laws of this country if they knew of them, but do so innocently because they either do not know, or do not speak English well enough to understand them fully, and think that in this country, where they have so much liberty, they are free to do as they like about everything.

“There are also Americans, I am sorry to say, as well as foreign-born, who have a heartless streak in them, and first show it by cruelty to helpless, harmless animals. This should be stopped, as much for their good as future citizens as for the welfare of the wild animals themselves, for the child who will kill or torture a dumb beast has the germs of murder in him that may later, in a fit of passion, break out toward a fellow-being.

“What do you think of boys—yes, and girls, for I saw one last spring—who would spend an afternoon in stoning the hanging nest of an Oriole until the nestlings, dying, stopped their pitiful cries and fell to the ground in the rags of their wonderful home, while their parents circled about in agony? Sad to say, these were American-born children, too, who live not far from Foxes Corners, who very well knew right from wrong.

“When children have this evil mind, the laws of the state must be used to cleanse,—just as the law may enter the house and do away with contagious disease. Cruelty is often as infectious as sickness; and it is, in fact, a sickness of the mind. It is quite as necessary sometimes that the heart should go to school and be taught kindness as that we should learn to read.

HOW WE CAN PROTECT BIRDS

“We can help birds simply by not hurting them and leaving them as free as possible to live out their joyous lives; but we can do much more if we will leave some little bushy nooks about the farm or garden, where they may nest in private, place food in convenient places during the long, cold winter months for those birds that remain with us, and make it a rule never to raise more kittens than we need to keep barn and house free of rats or than we can feed and care for.

“Silly people, who shirk responsibility, often say, ‘Oh, I couldn’t think of drowning a kitten,’ and yet they will let dozens of them grow up unfed and uncared for, or leave a litter by the roadside, until in many places a breed of gaunt, half-wild cats roam about destroying the eggs and young of song-birds, game-birds, and domestic fowls alike.

“A nice, comfortable house or barn cat is one thing, but the savage outcast is quite another, and should no more be let live than a weasel or a skunk.

HOUSING AND FEEDING

“When places become thickly settled, and villages grow into towns and towns into cities, one of the first things that troubles the father and mother of a family is to find house-room, a suitable place to live, that shall be healthful for the children, and yet not be too far from the father’s work, and many and many a family have had to move to inconvenient places because such a home could not be found near by.

“Strange as it may at first seem, our little fellow-citizens, the birds, have this same trouble.

“In an open, half-wooded farming country there are plenty of nesting haunts, and running brooks and ponds for the birds who need water by their homestead. But presently perhaps a railway comes by; the land is bought up and the woods cut down for railway ties, the brush is cleared from old pastures and they are turned into house-lots. Old orchards, like ours here, are done away with, and everything is ‘cleaned up.’

“This is as it should be, and a sign of progress; but where are the birds that Nature has told to nest in tree hollows, like the Bluebird, Chickadee, the Tree Swallow, Downy and Hairy Woodpecker, and the jolly Yellowhammer, to find homes?

“You will often hear people say, ‘It is too bad the Bluebirds are dying out;’ but if somewhere about the place you will fasten a hollow log or a square bird-box with a single round opening in it to a high fence-post or to a pole set up on purpose, you will soon see that the Bluebirds have not died out, but that they have been discouraged in their house-hunting.

“It is a mistake to make bird-houses too large, or to have many rooms in them, unless you are hoping to attract Purple Martins, who like to live in colonies. Birds like a whole building to themselves quite as well as people, and they do not like people to come too close and peep in at their windows and doors, either.

“Autumn and winter are the best seasons for making and placing bird-boxes; it gives time for them to become ‘weathered’ before nesting time, and birds are apt to be suspicious of anything that looks too new and fine, and I have a plan that I think you will like by which you boys can not only make bird-houses for your own yards and farms, but make them to sell to others as well.

“It is also a kind act for those who live on farms to leave a few stacks of cornstalks or a sheaf of rye standing in a fence corner as a shelter for the game-birds, who are often driven by cold to burrow in the snow for cover, and, frequently, when the crust freezes above them, die of starvation.

“Doing this is wise as well as kind, for it helps to keep alive and increase these valuable food-birds, and makes better sport for the farmers in the time when the law says they may go a-hunting.

“Of course, in every country school even, there are children who do not live on farms, but these can club together and do what they can to feed and shelter the birds that come about the schoolhouse. You have all seen Goldilocks’ lunch-table for feeding the winter birds, and though Sarah Barnes would like to have such a one down at the school, others perhaps may think it foolish.

“As you already know, some birds eat insects and others seed foods, or, to put it another way, some birds prefer meat and some bread; so if you wish to suit all kinds you must feed them with sandwiches, made of both bread and meat.

“ ‘Sandwiches for birds!—how foolish!’ I hear some one say. Stop and think a moment, and you will see that it is merely a way of expression, a figure of speech, as it is called.

“Give the birds the material, crumbs, cracked corn, hayloft sweepings, bits of fat bacon, suet, or bones that have some rags of meat attached, and they will make their own sandwiches, each one to its taste.

“If this food is merely scattered upon the ground, it will attract mice, rats, and other rodents, but if a regular lunch-counter is prepared for the food you will find that the birds will appreciate the courtesy, become liberal customers, and run up a long bill; this, however, they will pay with music when spring comes.

A SUGGESTION FOR THE LUNCH-COUNTER

“Almost every school has a flagpole, and, while some are fastened to the building itself, like the one at Foxes Corners, many stand free and are planted in the yard. However, there is one old tree at your school and I will ask Jacob to build you a lunch-counter, if you will promise to see that it is kept well filled with provisions.

“This is the way it should be made: Around the pole a square or circular shelf about eight inches wide can be fastened, four feet from the ground, and edged with a strip of beading, barrel hoops, or the like. A dozen tenpenny nails should be driven on the outside edge at intervals, like the spokes to a wheel, and the whole neatly painted to match the pole.

“Then each week we will ask Miss Wilde to appoint a child as Bird Steward, his or her duties being to collect the scraps after the noon dinner-hour and place them neatly on the counter, the crusts and crumbs on the shelf and the meat to be hung on the spikes.

“Nothing will come amiss—pine cones, beechnuts, the shells of hard-boiled eggs broken fine, apple cores, half-cleaned nuts; and if the children will tell their parents of the counter, they will often put an extra scrap or so in the dinner pail to help the feast. Or the fortunate children whose fathers keep the market, the grocery store, or the mill, may be able to obtain enough of the wastage to leave an extra supply on Friday, so that the pensioners need not go hungry over Sunday.

“All the while the flag will wave gayly above little Citizen Bird, as under its protection he feeds upon his human brothers’ bounty.

“Here is the story of one of these lunch-counters that proved a success. It was written to encourage others, and I will read it so that you may know that bird lunch-counters belong to real and not to fairy-tales.”

AN ADIRONDACK LUNCH-COUNTER

In the Adirondacks in March, 1900, the snow fell over four feet deep, and wild birds were driven from the deep woods to seek for food near the habitation of man. It occurred to me that a lunch-counter with “meals at all hours” might suit the convenience of some of the visitors to my orchard, so I fixed a plank out in front of the house, nailed pieces of raw and cooked meat to it, sprinkled bread-crumbs and seeds around, and awaited results.

The first caller was a Chickadee. He tasted the meat, seemed to enjoy it, and went off for his mate. They did not seem in the least afraid when I stood on the veranda and watched them, and after a time paid but little attention to the noises in the house; but only one would eat at a time. The other one seemed to keep watch. I set my camera and secured a picture of one alone. While focussing for the meat one Chickadee came and commenced eating in front of the camera, and a second later its mate perched on my hand as I turned the focussing screw.

I saw the Chickadees tear off pieces of meat and suet and hide them in the woodpile. This they did repeatedly, and later in the day would come back and eat them if the lunch-counter was empty.

My observation in this respect is confirmed by a lumber-man, who noticed that when eating his lunch, back in the woods, the Chickadees were very friendly and would carry off scraps of meat and hide them, coming back for more, time and time again.

The next day another pair of Chickadees and a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches came. The Nuthatches had a presumptuous way of taking possession, and came first one and then both together. The Chickadees flew back and forth in an impatient manner, but every time they went near the meat the Nuthatches would fly or hop toward them, uttering what sounded to me like a nasal, French no, no, no, and the Chickadees would retire to await their turn when the Nuthatches were away.

The news of the free lunch must have travelled as rapidly in the bird world as gossip in a country town usually does, for before long a beautiful male Hairy Woodpecker made his appearance, and came regularly night and morning for a number of days. Hunger made him bold, and he would allow me to walk to within a few feet of him when changing plates in the camera. It was interesting to note his position on the plank. When he was eating, his tail was braced to steady his body. He did not stand on his feet, except when I attracted his attention by tapping on the window, but when eating put his feet out in front of him in a most peculiar manner. This position enabled him to draw his head far back and gave more power to the stroke of his bill, and shows that Woodpeckers are not adapted for board-walking.

Of course, the smaller Downy Woodpeckers were around; they always are in the orchard toward spring. I also had a flock of Redpolls come a number of times after a little bare spot of ground began to show, but, although they ate seeds I put on the ground, they would not come up on the lunch-counter and did not stay very long. Beautiful Pine Grosbeaks came, too, but they preferred picking up the seeds they found under the maple trees. The American Goldfinches, in their Quaker winter dresses, called, but the seeds on some weeds in the garden just peeping above the snow pleased them better than a more elaborate lunch, and saying “per-chic-o-ree” they would leave.—F. A. Van Sant, Jay, N.Y., in Bird Lore.

MATILDA ANN