  ONE cold day in January Kitty Blake had dined with grandma and was on her way home through the fields. Perhaps you wonder why Kitty should walk in the fields when the snow was so deep. But there was a hard crust on the snow and she could skip along over it without breaking through. It was great fun. Suddenly she stopped, for there in a slight hollow in the snow lay a tiny bird. “Poor little birdie, it must have frozen to death,” said Kitty softly, and a tear stood in her eye, for she has a tender heart for all little creatures. Then she said “Oh!” and gave a start that sent the tears tumbling over her muff “P’r’aps it’s still alive, after all;” she thought, and she picked it up and tucked it into her muff. Her muff was lined with fur. She reached home quite breathless, and when she took out the bird and laid it on mamma’s lap, it gave one little “Peep!” stood on its legs, and then flew up into the ivy that ran all about the south bay window. “What made it make b’lieve dead?” asked Kitty. “It didn’t make believe,” said mamma. “I think it was dizzy. Birds sometimes are dizzy. But if you had not found it, it would soon have frozen to death.” Kitty named him “The Tramp,” and he lived in the bay window with mamma’s plants. This bay window was shut off from the rest of the room by glass doors. It was a sunny and fragrant home for the little chickadee, and a lucky bird he was to have it just then. For on the first day of February it began to snow and snowed three days, and when it cleared there were piles and piles of snow. Great flocks of birds then came about the house searching for food. “We must feed them or they will die,” said mamma. “The snow is so deep they cannot find food.” So Kitty scattered meal and hemp seed on the snow and tied meaty bones on the lilac and rose bushes, and there wasn’t a moment of the day when some blue jay, or snow bird, or chickadee, or robin, was not picking up grain, or pecking at the bones. “That is the way to have birds in winter!” said Kitty. The Tramp did not seem to care a fig about his relations till one day in March when a flock of chickadees flew past, THE TRAMP VISITS CHARLEY. Mamma opened the window and off he flew! Kitty sighed and said, “That is the last of him, I suppose.” But it wasn’t. One sunny May day Charley was sitting up in bed. Charley is Kitty’s brother. He had been sick and the window was open so he could breathe the soft spring air. Suddenly a bird dropped upon the window sill and began to whistle “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!” so blithely and cock his head at Charley. “It’s the Tramp!” said Charley; and sure enough it was! After that he came almost every day. If the window was shut they opened it for him. Charley used to hide hemp seed and sugar under the edge of the pillows for the Tramp to find. He always found it. Sometimes he would tie sugar up in a paper and the Tramp would peck at it until he got it out. THE TRAMP’S HOME. He would perch on Charley’s shoulder and eat seeds from his mouth. He wanted to build a nest in an old letter box nailed up against The Tramp was a brave little fellow and a good fighter; but he never would have driven the birds off, if Kitty hadn’t helped him. “I love all the birds,” said Kitty, “but the Tramp is my very own bird.” So he and his mate built a nest and raised a family of birds in peace, and now Kitty and Charley call the old letter-box “The Tramp’s Home.” A PAIR OF HORSES.—From Rosa Bonheur’s painting, “The Horse Fair.” CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.—From the sketch by Verspronck, in the Louvre. |
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