Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/225

Rh see him stop continually to pick them off. "Gather up the fragments," he says, "that nothing be lost."

When one of the pieces in the bag is so far nibbled away that a corner of it can be pulled through one of the interstices, matters become exciting. Then comes the tug of war. The eater, who knows that his time is limited, grows almost frantic. He braces himself and pulls, twitching upward and downward and sidewise ("Come out, there, will you?"), while the wind blows him to and fro across the pane, and one or two of his mates sit upon the nearest branch of the elm, eyeing him reproachfully. "You greedy thing!" they say. "Are you going to stay there forever?" Often their patience gives out (I do not wonder), and one after another they swoop down past the window, not to strike the offender, but to offer him a hint in the way of moral suasion. Sometimes one alights, with more or less difficulty, on the narrow middle sash just below, and talks to him; or one hovers near the bag, or even perches sidewise on the string, just above, as much as to say, "Look out!" Then I hear