"Don't shoot--don't shoot him!" he said.

"But why not?"

"'Cause you mustn't--you must never kill a chickadee."

And the younger, influenced more by a certain mysterious shake of the
head than by the words, slacked his bow cheerfully; and with a last
wide-eyed look at the little gray bird that twittered and swung so
fearlessly near them, the two boys went on with their hunting.

No one ever taught the older boy to discriminate between a chickadee
and other birds; no one else ever instructed the younger. Yet somehow
both felt, and still feel after many years, that there is a
difference. It is always so with boys. They are friends of whatever
trusts them and is fearless. Chickadee's own personality, his cheery
ways and trustful nature had taught them, though they knew it not. And
among all the boys of that neighborhood there is still a law, which no
man gave, of which no man knows the origin, a law as unalterable as
that of the Medes and Persians: _Never kill a chickadee_.

If you ask the boy there who tells you the law, "Why not a chickadee
as well as a sparrow?" he shakes his head as of yore, and answers
dogmatically: "'Cause you mustn't."

* * * * *

CHICKADEE'S SECRET.

If you meet Chickadee in May with a bit of rabbit fur in his mouth, or