I remember once when a
party of four made camp after a driving rain-storm. Everybody was wet;
everything soaking. The lazy man had upset a canoe, and all the dry
clothes and blankets had just been fished out of the river. Now the
lazy man stood before the fire, looking after his own comfort. The
other three worked like beavers, making camp. They were in ill humor,
cold, wet, hungry, irritated. They said nothing.
A flock of chickadees came down with sunny greetings, fearless,
trustful, never obtrusive. They looked innocently into human faces and
pretended that they did not see the irritation there. "_Tsic a dee_. I
wish I could help. Perhaps I can. _Tic a dee-e-e?_"--with that gentle,
sweetly insinuating up slide at the end. Somebody spoke, for the first
time in half an hour, and it wasn't a growl. Presently somebody
whistled--a wee little whistle; but the tide had turned. Then somebody
laughed. "'Pon my word," he said, hanging up his wet clothes, "I
believe those chickadees make me feel good-natured. Seem kind of
cheery, you know, and the crowd needed it."
And Chickadee, picking up his cracker crumbs, did not act at all as if
he had done most to make camp comfortable.
There is another way in which he helps, a more material way. Millions
of destructive insects live and multiply in the buds and tender bark
of trees.
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