I'm the "Chat." You've heard me if you haven't seen me. But there isn't a better lookin' bird in our wood, either. My olive-green coat is a beauty. My yellow satin vest would dazzle your eyes. And my white china spectacles are heirlooms in our family. My wife dresses just as handsome as I do. I'm a prey to high spirits. Some folk call me a "wag." Don't know what that is, but I don't see the use in bein' doleful. Why, when I get back from Mexico, I feel obliged to holler. So I just holler. The way old Mother Earth rigs up in the Spring makes me full of life. I get down and cool my legs in the deep grass. It brings my appetite back a-whizzin'. My! If I don't eat a thousand bugs a day. "Juicy" don't describe 'em. Then I climb a tree-top and holler. If I eat a thousand bugs seems like I have to give two thousand hollers. I holler straight through a moonlight night. You see, I hate to let old Whippoorwill think he's the only bird alive. Mornin' after folks stop talkin' 'bout how bad they slept and say, "What's that?" somebody says, "That's the Chat." Then they always laugh. And I laugh, too—a very Falstaffian laugh, as if I'se shakin' great fat sides out of their accordion plaits. Then I give a beautiful whistle. And they say, "Now, what's that?" The fellow I know says, "That's the Chat." Then I give a surprised whistle, just as if you stepped on a tack or took a drink of red-hot coffee. And they say, "And what's that?" And the wise man says, "That's the Chat again." Well, says the other fellow, "I'll never know that bird." But the bad sleeper says, "Well, you would if he kept you awake all last night as he did me. He never knows when to stop." But even that fellow will never know when I've said my last word!

These rag folks are awful stupids, anyhow. I call 'em "blunderers." Do more harm than good wherever they're at. My wife knits our house among thorns just to plague 'em. They hate to get their rags torn. Then they'd better keep scarce of our door. If it ain't in blackberry jungles it's in catbrier tangles. I could yarn from sun-up to sundown 'bout how rag folks come blunderin' round interferin'. Barrin' o cat's, they've got the most meddlesome forefeet I ever saw. But it ain't often they find us. Cause why? We keep still. Our next-door neighbor's Dame Indigo. Can't a body go by she don't pop up scoldin' like a house afire. Then they blunder round till they find her nest-eggs, too! Lots of other feather-heads just like her! There's Topknot Cardnal makes such a fuss anybody'd know he's got something to hide. Sure enough, he's had such lots of kin behind the bars it makes him scary. But I'd show more pluck, anyhow.

Once this summer a blunderer smarter'n common came along by us. We had a nice place, too, in a dreadful blackberry tangle. A small sassafras threw a nice shadow over it when the sun got hot. Well, I shut up quick, I tell you. Was just tellin' Mrs. Chat a few things while she kep' an eye on our four eggs like. We kep' still as mice. But didn't that blunderin' rags march right up to our door and push and scratch till she saw what we had? Had a little rag blunderer with her. An' she held her up to look in, too. Every single feather we had stood on end! It was good riddance when they went along. Couldn't believe my specs when I saw they had left our eggs alone. Seven suns after, big rags came back. We're in a peck o' trouble. Our four bairns just out the shell. We both had to scratch round with all our toes to feed and keep 'em breathin'. Been rainin' for a solid week. Dame Chat said she just knew they'd get a chill and die. But the blunderin' party didn't stay long.

Well, sir, we hadn't got rid of that blunderer yet. The nex' time she brought another, bigger one, along. Both crowded up and looked in our door. You never saw such beauties as our bairns that day. Just gettin' so plump and featherin' right along. But it meant a sight o' work for us. They just sat and took in every mouthful we could rake and scrape. They kep' us busy. Well, when these blunderin' rags shook the house the bairns all up and spread their jaws wide open. Rags thought it was awful cute, but I'm thankful they didn't offer to feed 'em anything. Did bad enough, anyhow. Big one said, "Why don't you take their picture?" First rags said she couldn't. Second rags said she'd try, anyhow. With that, first rags began to snap off our best defenses—without so much as by your leave. They scratched her good, anyhow; for she said so. Well, she put some kind of square black gun right up to our door. Dame Chat went into hysterics and those little Chats just boiled over like a teakettle and went out the nest in four different directions! The two blunderers went off in a hurry, both talkin' at once and one suckin' her paw. Thankful to say ain't ever seen 'em since. But Dame Chat's a nervous wreck from the fright they gave her; and I'm worked to skin and bone takin' care of the little Chats. I just wish all the town's fenced in so's blunderers couldn't get loose to meddle round in their bunglin', elephant, rhinoceros way!

Elizabeth Nunemacher.