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And, when the officers should be ready to retire for the night, warm and cozy berths awaited them, where they would stretch their limbs on downy quilts and mattresses, utterly oblivious to the wet and chill on the outside. Then I turned my head and took in my surroundings! A black, cold night, cinders and soot drifting on us from the smoke stacks, and a drizzling rain pattering down.
The sight of her imparted fresh courage to me, and I even resumed my usual high spirits, and in the sudden turn my ideas had taken, was childish enough to express my regrets for the loss of my downy and luxurious bed at Versailles, complaining of the woful difference between it and the one I had slept on at Ruel.
I recklect he called me aside that afternoon, assuming a solamon and misterus hare, "Charles," said he, "ARE YOU UP TO SNUFF?" "Why sir," said I, "I'm genrally considered tolerably downy." "Well," says he, "I'll give you half a suffering if you can manage this bisness for me; I've chose a rainy night on purpus. Talk of Kimble! talk of Magreedy!
Sometimes after one of these squabbles a pale blue downy feather or two would come floating earthwards, touch the palmetto leaves of the house-roof and cling there, or be blown on to the grass. It was some days after the appearance of the schooner, and Dick was making ready to go into the woods and pick guavas. He had all the morning been engaged in making a basket to carry them in.
Though he sauntered through orchards and rested under apple trees, he never observed that the rings of small holes in the bark were usually made by the yellow-bellied woodpecker, instead of by Downy, and that the bird was not searching for grubs or insects, but was feeding upon the milky cambium layer of the inner bark.
"I I am cutting out a pair of braces for you," and she set to work again. But, as in cutting out she kept her head bent, I noticed, on passing behind her, her soft, white neck, which she had left bare that evening by dressing her hair higher than usual. A number of little downy hairs were curling there. This kind of down made me think of those ripe peaches one bites so greedily.
I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies; so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing in vain in vain thou triest to rise Pactolus chains thee down.
"If the fox comes back," said my companion, "he will cross up there or down here," indicating two points not twenty rods asunder. We stood so that each commanded one of the runways indicated. How light it was, though the sun was hidden! Every branch and twig beamed in the sun like a lamp. A downy woodpecker below me kept up a great fuss and clatter, all for my benefit, I suspected.
The females are seen at it almost as often as the males; the latter are known by the scarlet band at the back of the head. Perhaps it is not a love call after all; it may be only the exuberance of spirits caused by a fine breakfast and a warm morning. Downy kept it up, heedless of the human observer.
There is Downy the Woodpecker hard at work on a new house this very minute. That's good. I like to see that. It means that next year there will be one more house for some one here in the Old Orchard. For myself I prefer old houses. I've noticed there are a number of my neighbors who feel the same way about it. There is something settled about an old house.
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