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The brain waltzing intoxicated, the heart panting as in youth's earliest affection, the mind broad, and deep, and calm, a Pacific in the sunshine, the body lapped in downy rest, with every nerve ministering to its comfort; what more can one, merely and professedly of this world of sensualism an opium-eater for instance conceive of bliss?
When once properly buried the eggs seem to be no more cared for, the young birds working their way up through the heap of rubbish, and running off at once into the forest. They come out of the egg covered with thick downy feathers, and have no tail, although the wings are full developed.
"These eggs hatch at the end of three weeks they don't sprout and then we have a lovely family of soft downy chickies; little puff balls that we can cuddle under our wings and love dearly!" "Have you been sitting upon the eggs very long?" Raggedy asked. "Neither one of us has kept track of the time," said one hen. "So we do not know!
It was in first-rate order, and there were two broods of little yellow puffy chicks. Down on her knees went my wife, to pick up the little creatures, one by one, press their downy bodies to her cheek, and call them tootsy-wootsies, and away went I to the barn, followed by Pomona, and soon afterward by Euphemia. The cow was all right.
Just then a long, rolling rat-a-tat-tat rang out just over their heads. "There's another one of them," chuckled Jenny. "That's Downy, the smallest of the whole family. He certainly makes an awful racket for such a little fellow. He is a splendid drummer and he's just as good a carpenter. He made the very house I am occupying now." Peter was sitting with his head tipped back trying to see Downy.
The pockets were small, the needles were fine, the thread was a length of cobweb. Everything about the basket was small except the hopes that she was stitching into it; they were so great that her heart could scarcely hold them. Nature was stirring everywhere. The seeds were springing in the warm earth. The hens were clucking to their downy chicks just out of the egg.
The trees that had seemed so gaunt and skeleton-like as they writhed and moaned in the gale were now clothed with a beauty surpassing that of their summer foliage, for every branch, even to the smallest twig, had been incased in the downy flakes. The evergreens looked like old-time gallants well powdered for a festival. The shrubbery of the garden was scarcely more than mounds of snow.
Downy drilled another cell in a dead oak farther up the hill, and, I hope, passed the winter there unmolested. Such incidents, comic or tragic, as they chance to strike us, are happening all about us, if we have eyes to see them. The next season, near sundown of a late November day, I saw Downy trying to get possession of a hole not his own.
Ruffed Grouse, 1; Downy Woodpecker, 2; Blue Jay, 3; Goldfinch, 40; Tree Sparrow, 20; White-breasted Nuthatch, 3; Chickadee, 12. Total, 7 species, 81 individuals. Omaha, Neb. Dec. 25; 10 A. M. to 3 P. M. Clear till noon; 1 inch of snow with bare spots; wind light, south; temperature 20 to 32 degrees. Open woods and parks just west of town, walked north 5 miles.
"Mummy's coming," said Rachel tenderly. "What a duck it is!" And bending, she kissed the soft, downy cheek greedily, with the same ardour she had just been throwing into her own dreams of success. She carried the child, now quiet and comforted, towards the house. The warm weight upon her arms was delicious to her.
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