“Look at that bird sitting on the wire fence,” said Aunt Dorothy. “Isn’t that a butcher bird?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Philip, “that is a shrike, or butcher bird. I should not wonder if it were the same bird that followed me around this morning. I won’t tell you what he did, but if you will watch him maybe you’ll see something very interesting yourself.”
Uncle Philip put on his husking gloves and began his work, taking the ears of corn from the stalks in the stook without disturbing it any more than he could help.
Aunt Dorothy remained sitting on her board in the wagon.
Leicester and Keren went to play in the meadow through which they had just driven, and they frightened the butcher bird so that he flew away from the fence and perched near the top of a tall cornstalk in a neighboring stook. Keren found a dandelion blossom and Leicester a wild rose, a bit of pale, pink beauty that had blossomed late and alone on a bush whose leaves were dusty and faded. The children went to a hickory tree expecting to find some nuts on the ground, but the squirrels had been there already and nothing was left except some nut-shells. Yes, there were three or four nuts, but when, by the aid of two stones, the children had cracked them, they found the meat inside all dried up and unfit to eat. The squirrels must have known this without cracking the nuts, otherwise they would not have left them as they did.
Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Philip were talking about the butcher bird.
“The butcher bird is found all over the world,” said Aunt Dorothy, “and has different names in different countries.”
“And it has been written about by men who lived a long, long time ago,” said Uncle Philip, and he told Aunt Dorothy some of those men’s names. But they are so long and hard to say I will not tell them here.
“The shrike is a cousin to the crow. Nearly all the crows have black feathers, but the butcher bird wears a different dress in France from the one he wears in England, and in India he has still another garb,” said Aunt Dorothy.
“Yes,” said Uncle Philip, “but all the shrikes everywhere have toothed bills.”
By this time two more shrikes or butcher birds had joined the first one and all three were flying about impatiently from place to place.
“Just as if they were waiting for something to happen,” said Aunt Dorothy.
“So they are,” said Uncle Philip, who had finished husking the corn in his stook. “Call the children now; or I will,” he said, and whistled and beckoned till Leicester and Keren came running to where he was.
“Now,” he said, “look at that stunted old tree over there, children. Do you see the three butcher birds in it?”
Yes, every one saw the birds.
“Well, then,” he said, “get into the wagon and keep watch of them. I am going to drive to the next corn stook,” and away they went. After Uncle Philip had stopped the horses he told Aunt Dorothy and the children to sit together on the board with their backs to the horses and keep very still.
“I am going behind the corn stook and will pull it away as best I can from where it now stands. Watch the birds and the ground near the stook.”
As soon as he had pulled away the cornstalks he stooped down and walked away some distance as quickly and quietly as he could. Then Aunt Dorothy and the children saw the butcher birds alight on the ground on which the cornstalks had been and catch young mice and moles. One of the birds took a mole to the wire fence near by and stuck it on a barb. Then he flew away, leaving it hanging there. He was going to catch some young mice to eat just then and save the mole for luncheon.
His claws were not strong enough to hold the mole while he could kill and eat it, but if he hung it on the wire fence he could use all his strength in tearing it to pieces with his strong toothed bill. Every one felt sorry for the poor mole, but all were glad to be able to see how the butcher bird gets his dinner.
Time went by and soon Uncle Philip was ready to move another bunch of cornstalks. Aunt Dorothy and the children prepared to watch again, for the butcher birds were still in the neighborhood and waiting anxiously for a chance to secure some more prey. This time there was a rat under the cornstalks and a bold butcher bird flew at him and tried to kill him. The rat, however, got away from his enemy in feathers. One of the butcher birds caught a mole and stuck it on a long thorn on a hawthorn tree.
“Let us have something to eat as well as the birds,” said Uncle Philip. So he left Blotter and Little Gray standing in the field – they were never known to run away – and all went to a pleasant spot in the meadow and ate the luncheon which Mama Bryant had sent in the peach basket. Oh, how good those cookies tasted to Leicester and Keren!
Those were happy passengers who rode home that evening on the yellow ears of corn. Keren had found one red ear and she took it home and gave it a place by the side of her pet playthings.
At supper time Leicester told his papa what they had seen the butcher birds do, and Aunt Dorothy said: “You must tell about it in school, Leicester; it will make a good Monday morning story.”
That evening after Uncle Philip and Aunt Dorothy had gone home and the children had said their little evening prayer Leicester kissed his mother and told her he would try to be a good boy every day for a whole week. “And I hope I will have as good a time next Saturday as I have had to-day,” said he.
And all night long the little stars peeping through the windows saw two happy little faces asleep upon their pillows.
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS
I hear from many a little throat
A warble interrupted long;
I hear the robin’s flute-like note,
The bluebird’s slenderer song.
Brown meadows and the russet hill,
Not yet the haunt of grazing herds,
And thickets by the glimmering rill
Are all alive with birds.
HOUSE-HUNTING IN ORCHARD TOWN
’Tis up and down
In Orchard town,
When airs with bloom are scented,
You’ll hardly find
To suit your mind
A nook that is not rented.
The old sweet-bough,
They all allow,
The robin first selected.
“Our home is here,
Good cheer, good cheer,
All other claims rejected.”
“Chick-a-dee-dee,
Don’t come to me!”
The titmouse is refusing,
“We’ve leased this tree,
We’ll friendly be,
But say you’re late in choosing.”
“Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,”
Across the street
The yellow-birds are moving.
“Chip-chip-a-chee;
So