I doubt if any one was ever haunted by a more commonplace object than a fence-post; yet, terminating a fence that borders a little farm, there is a gray old post which has haunted my imagination for several years. The fence has long ceased to fence anything in or out; the uppermost rail is the only one left and that is fastened to my post about five inches from the top. Just under the lee of that rail is a round hole which is rather jagged about the lower edge as if gnawed by sharp little teeth. Every time I travel that road I am impelled to stop and put a finger into that hole. I always expect to discover a secret, yet never do. Still, the post haunts me for once Boy-Chickadee kept house there.

Boy-Chickadee is one of our smallest birds. He wears a dumpy little gray coat surmounted by a pair of bright black eyes under a velvety black cap. Dear to the heart of every bird-lover, he is especially so in winter. It is then that his crystal pendulum of song swings lightly to and fro where other bird-song is rare. It is rather plaintive—two minor notes swing to the left, then two more to the right—and seems to belong only to frosty mornings. Boy-Chickadee stays to wish you “A Merry Christmas” and “A Happy New Year,” and comes daily to dine on sunflower seeds stowed in a large gourd for him. I should be ashamed to say how many seeds he consumes at a sitting, or flitting better describes it. He flits in for a seed, then out to the apple-tree to hammer it, uttering gurgles of content all the while. He spends so much time eating them that I eye my store anxiously wondering if it will hold out under such onslaughts. Sometimes he brings a companion and they take turns going into the gourd. His British enemies tag him enviously and hang about the gourd-door; but it is cut too small for them and they can only gaze in. It is Boy-Chickadee’s cache.

In summer time Chickadee deserts us and we must seek him in the fields, and that is how we came to find the fence-post. We sat waiting for birds to bathe, but waited in vain. They bathed up-stream and they bathed down-stream. We saw them drying their feathers, but they would not bathe by us. A dripping Chickadee flew overhead and sat preening his feathers in a sweetgum tree. How nearly we had come to seeing that bath! (a thing we had never achieved). In despair we crossed the road and hid behind the sassafras hedge. Presently something strange passed us and there was Dame Chickadee with a very queer burden. Imagine yourself with a mouthful of excelsior larger than your head, and you will have some idea of her comical appearance. She peered at us from behind her treasure first with one eye and then with the other. We were all attention. A dozen times she darted towards the old fence, but we were too alarming and she could not make up her mind to brave us. Each time she retreated to the sweetgum, holding tight to her bundle—it might have been a clematis blossom, I could not say. It was the first time I had ever seen a Chickadee look self-conscious. At the same time we saw that Boy-Chickadee had dipped in once more and was dripping wet. It was maddening. At last she made a wide curve towards us and disappeared. I sprang to the fence-post and discovered the round hole, and with an ecstatic catch of the breath I put one finger in. A bunch of indignant feathers hurled itself against my hand and out came the finger and out came she and whisked away with such lightning rapidity that we barely saw her. The hole was too deep and too well shadowed to tell us anything more than that it had a secret in its keeping and although we should have liked to camp by the post it was not to be.

At our next visit we found Dame Chickadee setting and Boy Chickadee feeding her; again, and the post had become a nursery. It seemed too ludicrous that such babes-in-the-woods should ever attain to the dignity of fatherhood and motherhood; but this time neither parent was there to be laughed at, and as I tapped at the door a perfectly intelligible “Day-day-day-day” came from the nursery; the babes had already learned to talk!

It was so long before we visited them again that we expected to find the post deserted. There was no sign of occupancy and I felt depressed because it was all over. But a gentle tap brought a tiny, angular cranium and a careworn baby face to the door. It didn’t seem possible that Boy Chickadee could have such a homely bairn! We withdrew in haste when he threatened to come out; but we had summoned him and the moment had come to seek his fortune. The youngster stepped into the door and set sail straight across the wide roadway. When we caught a rear view of the tiny sailboat our gravity was undone, for not a vestige of tail adorned it and he was the most unfinished fledgling we had ever seen.

This was the last sign of life the old fence-post yielded, but I cannot learn to believe it final. I am constantly expecting to see more Chickadees set sail, and its possibilities still haunt me.

Elizabeth Nunemacher.