ed down from a scarlet
bird that sang in the tree-tops, and tore off silk from a cocoon. So,
bit by bit, they gathered their treasures, until many a woodland and
meadow creature and plant had had a share in the softness of a nest
worthy of eight dear white eggs with reddish-brown spots upon them. It
was such a soft nest, in fact, with such dear eggs in it, that Chick
brooded there cosily himself part of the time, and was happy to bring
food to his mate when she took her turn.

In eleven or twelve days from the time the eggs were laid, there were
ten birds in that home instead of two. The fortnight that followed was
too busy for song. Chick and his mate looked the orchard over even more
thoroughly than the Farmer Boy did; and before those eight hungry babies
of theirs were ready to leave the nest, it began to seem as if Chick had
eaten too many insect eggs in the spring, there were so few caterpillars
hatching out. But the fewer there were, the harder they hunted; and the
harder they hunted, the scarcer became the caterpillars. So when Dee,
Chee, Fee, Wee, Lee, Bee, Mee, and Zee were two weeks old, and came out
of the hollow post to seek their own living, the whole family had to
take to the birches until a new crop of insect eggs had been laid in the
orchard. This was no hardship. It only added the zest of travel and
adventure to the pleasure of the days. Besides, it isn't just orchards
that Chick, D.D. and his kind take care of. It is forests and
shade-trees, too.

Hither and yon they hopped and flitted, picking the weevils out of the
dead tips of the growing pine trees, serving the beech trees such a good
turn that the beechnut crop was the heavier for their visit, doing a bit
for the maple-sugar trees, and so on through the woodland.

Not only did they mount midget guard over the mighty trees, but they
acted as pilots to hungry birds less skillful than themselves in finding
the best feeding-places. "Chick, D.D.D.D.D.," they called in
thanksgiving, as they found great plenty; and warblers and kinglets and
creepers and many a bird beside knew the sound, and gathered there to
share the bountiful feast that Chick, D.D. had discovered.

The gorgeous autumn came, the brighter, by the way, for the leaves that
Chick had saved. The Bob-o-links, in traveling suits, had already left
for the prairies of Brazil and Paraguay, by way of Florida and Jamaica.
The strange honk of geese floated down from V-shaped flocks, as if they