Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/223

Rh covered, is a laggard in the morning. Then is their time. In very bad weather, indeed, they come at all hours; but they are always wary. If I raise the window an inch or two and set it down with a slam, away they go; though, likely as not, I look out again five minutes later to find them still there. In times of dearth one may reasonably risk something for a good piece of suet.

The jays take what they can, somewhat against our will. The table is spread for smaller people: for downy woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, and chickadees, with whom appears now and then, always welcome, a brown creeper. The table is set for them, I say; and they seem to know it. They come not as thieves, but as invited guests, or, better still, as members of the family. No opening and shutting of windows puts them to flight. Why should it? There are at least a dozen baiting-places about the house, and they know every one of them. Though the fare is everywhere the same, they seem to find a spice of variety in taking a bite at one table after another.