Stránka:tales 1921.djvu/129

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… learned to love the brave little bird that sets his face so cheerfully, to meet so hard a case.

And winter did end. Spring did come at last. And the sign of its coming was when the ice broke on the stream and the pussy willow came purring out above it. The air was full of the good news. The Chicadees felt it, and knew it through and through. They went mad with joy, chasing each other round and round the trees and through the hollow logs, shouting “The spring is here, the spring is here, Hurree, Hurree, Hurree”, and in another week their joyous lives were going on as before the trouble came.

But to this day, when the chill wind blows through the deserted woods, the Chicadees seem to lose their wits for a few days, and dart into all sorts of queer places. They may then be found in great cities, or open prairies, cellars, chimneys, and hollow logs; and the next time you find one of the wanderers in any out-of-the-way comer, be sure to remember that the Chicadee goes crazy twice a year, in the fall and in the spring, and probably went into his strange hole or town in search of the Gulf of Mexico.

TALE 40

The Story of the Quaking Aspen or Poplar

The leaf of the Quaking Asp is like the one marked “a” in the drawing. Its trunk is smooth, greenish, or whitish, with black knots of bark like “c”. All the farmers know it as Popple, or White Poplar; but the hunters call it Quaking Asp or Aspen. The name “quaking” was given because it is for ever shaking its leaves; the slightest wind sets them all rustling. They move so easily because each leaf-stem is like a thin, ..text pokračuje