piperlings

Updated: May 13, 2025

But the piperlings could not fly, having no feathers; and they crept under a crooked log. I rolled the log over very gently and took one of the cowering creatures into my hand a tiny, palpitating scrap of life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping shrilly, like a Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was transformed. Her fear was changed into fury.

Henry Van Dyke - Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things