TWENTY-NINETHERE had been days of wind and rain, and sometimes fog that I thought must be an intimation of what death was like, and once in a while a sunny day to promise something better by and by. Hardy birds in plain colors, highly respectable, good-citizen birds that knew life was not a bed of roses, but that developed character, birds that went about their business and did not hold by pampering, remained with us; and so did some ruffian birds that took no moral satisfaction in the cold, rough weather but had not been permitted, for guilts that they well knew, to go south with the flighty songsters. They took another satisfaction though—in being just as low, impudent, and ribald as they knew how.
But my heart quailed when I thought of the colder climes, where the snow lay deep and sti
