Part 33

This lunch-counter was in place when Gray Lady went to the school the first Friday afternoon in November, and she brought an additional surprise with her,—two pictures or charts that could be unrolled and hung on the wall like the great map. Each of these charts held the pictures of some twenty-five birds done in colours and of natural size, and with each there was a little book telling about the birds.

The charts were to be lent to the five other schools in the township in turn, but the children at Foxes Corners were so delighted with them that they resolved that the first money that the Kind Hearts’ Club earned should go to buy other pairs of the charts, so that they could not only have some for their very own, but that the other schools, who had no Gray Lady for their fairy god-mother, could have them also.

After the first few weeks, Gray Lady found that it would be best, on the Fridays when she visited the school, simply to read to the children stories of the birds that they had either seen at Birdland or that they already knew by sight, from various books and magazines; as she had at her house so many books, pictures of birds, and the mounted birds themselves, that it was much easier for them to name unknown birds there than at school.

* * * * *

“The singing-birds have all gone,” said Sarah Barnes, the second Saturday of November, as she went to work upon the last piece of her doll’s outfit—the cloak for the Red Riding-Hood that she was dressing.

“We still have a Song Sparrow down in the meadow,” said Goldilocks, “and there are plenty of Bluebirds and Robins about, and Grackles and Cowbirds, but the Song Sparrow is the only one that pretends to sing a nice little song.”

“I guess we’ll have to go ahead to the spring birds or there won’t be anything to learn about until they come back,” chimed in Eliza Clausen, who was at work on a doll baby, and as her fingers were long and slender, she succeeded in hemming the fine lawn, of which the dress was made, very nicely.

“No birds?” said Gray Lady, raising her eyebrows. “Open the window nearest you, Sarah, and do both you and Eliza look out and listen.”

“I don’t see anything, and I only hear different kinds of squeaks,” said Eliza.

“I hear the squeaks,” said Sarah, “but I see a gray bird out here on the roof, with black on top of his head and white underneath, and he’s got a long beak and a short tail. Why, he’s just stuffed something that he had in his beak in between the shingles. Now he’s crying ‘quank-quank’ and flying toward the orchard.”

“That,” said Gray Lady, “is the White-breasted Nuthatch, one of our best winter friends, for though he summers with us, like the Chickadee and the Woodpeckers, it is not until the other birds have gone, and the trees are bare of leaves, that we really seem to see and appreciate him.

“This Nuthatch is one of the tree-trunk birds that you will learn to know so well, before winter is over, that you will never forget them; for, though they have no song to speak of, their cleverness and the good they do when other birds have gone more than make up for lack of music.”

“What do you mean by tree-trunk birds?” asked Clary; “I thought that birds liked leafy branches the best.”

“Most birds do prefer the leafy branches,” said Gray Lady; “that is why I call this little group, who do not, ‘tree-trunk birds,’ for all their little lives are spent so close to the heart of the wood that they seem almost to be parts of the tree.

“These birds not only make their nests in the wood itself by hollowing out partly decayed places in branch and trunk, but they gain the greater part of their food by searching the cracks in the tree bark for insects that live there, and which other birds, that spend their lives among the leafy twigs, cannot find.

“This quarrying food from the bark makes it possible for them to stay about the vicinity of their nesting-haunts all winter; for many forms of insect life winter in the bark crevices of forest as well as fruit trees where the eggs hatch out, and the larvae undergo transformation early in the season and begin to do mischief before the migrant birds return.

“If it were not for sleet storms, that cover the tree with a coating of ice for days at a time, these hardy, sociable little birds would be sure of a good living in a neighbourhood like this, with many orchards and strips of woodland. But when ice puts a lock on the pantry doors, what can the poor birds do?

“Owing to their frail structure and warm blood, they require more constant fuel to keep the life-fire alive than the four-footed animals, so that when hunger and cold travel hand in hand, they have to make a brave fight for life. For generations this freezing up has happened to them, and so, by experience, they have learned when food is plenty to try and save it up.

“The Nuthatch, that Sarah has just seen stowing something away under the shingles, is living very well at present. In spite of hard frost, wild food is plentiful; then, too, the lunch-counter is amply supplied with suet. The birds do not really need help as yet, but we put the food there so that they may know where to find it when hard times come.”

“I should think the lunch-counter, with lots of easy food, would make the birds lazy so’s they wouldn’t work for a living,” said Dave. “Pop says, feeding tramps everywhere only makes more folks turn tramp, so now he can’t get anybody to work at haying or wood-cutting for food and fair pay.”

“Ah, but that shows the difference between wild birds and what is called ‘civilized’ man,” said Gray Lady. “The Nuthatches do not sit still and gorge themselves, but are busy providing for the future. Yesterday, I saw one of these same birds packing away little bits of suet in a crevice under the roof of the side porch, and another using the thatch on the summer-house for a larder. So it would seem that they distribute the food in different places. If one cupboard is frozen up, one of the others may be in the sun.

“A pair of Nuthatches found that the cornice of the main roof, under the tin gutter, was in poor shape, and kindly called my attention to it by boring into the wood and nesting in the space within. Five little birds were hatched, and I believe that the party of seven, that are so tame and come about the house so freely, are the birds hatched in the cornice and their parents.”

“I shouldn’t think that you would like them to make holes in the house,” said Tommy, “for the water might get in and do lots of harm, just the same as Woodpeckers that make holes in the trees and spoil them.”

“That is where people make a mistake about these tree-trunk birds that bore holes, and think that they are mischievous and destructive, whereas they never pierce bark unless an insect lurks beneath, and when they bore a nest-hole in a tree, it is the same as saying to its owner, ‘See, this wood is dead; I am making use of what is otherwise useless to you and I will pay you rent by protecting your other trees from harm. If you watch well, you will see how many hairy caterpillars, birch-lice, and wood-boring beetles I will kill in the year.’”

“The gutter is all mended and painted now, so the Nuthatches can’t nest there next season, and I guess they will be very sorry,” said Clary, who had taken her turn at looking out the window.

“Yes, the cornice has been mended, but Jacob has hollowed out a bit of hickory branch with the bark on it, and has fastened it firmly under the cornice with screws, so that when the birds look up their home in spring, they will find a new one so close to the old place that I hope they will move into it. In fact, those pictures in the workroom, of bird-homes made of hollowed-out logs, were designed especially to attract these tree-trunk birds and their little companions, the Chickadees, who, though they search the twigs for food, love the trunk also, and nest in a wood hollow like the Woodpeckers, themselves.”

“He’s come back again, but he hasn’t brought suet this time; it’s some kind of a big seed that won’t stay in the shingle crack, so he’s pounding it in,” said Sarah, looking over Clary’s shoulder and dropping her sewing, so interested was she in the movements of the bird. “There, he’s going away and walking down the roof head first; I don’t see why he doesn’t slip and fall, the same as I did once when I tried to walk down the back stairs on my hands and knees head first, ’cause brother dared me.”

Gray Lady hurried to the window in time to see the Nuthatch give a final pound to the object that was wedged between the shingles. With her opera-glasses, she discovered that it was the empty shell of a beechnut.