if he seem preoccupied or absorbed, you may know that he is building a
nest, or has a wife and children near by to take care of. If you know
him well, you may even feel hurt that the little friend, who shared
your camp and fed from your dish last winter, should this spring seem
just as frank, yet never invite you to his camp, or should even lead
you away from it. But the soft little nest in the old knot-hole is the
one secret of Chickadee's life; and the little deceptions by which he
tries to keep it are at times so childlike, so transparent, that they
are even more interesting than his frankness.

One afternoon in May I was hunting, without a gun, about an old
deserted farm among the hills--one of those sunny places that the
birds love, because some sense of the human beings who once lived
there still clings about the half wild fields and gives protection.
The day was bright and warm. The birds were everywhere, flashing out
of the pine thickets into the birches in all the joyfulness of
nest-building, and filling the air with life and melody. It is poor
hunting to move about at such a time. Either the hunter or his game
must be still. Here the birds were moving constantly; one might see
more of them and their ways by just keeping quiet and invisible.

I sat down on the outer edge of a pine thicket, and became as much as
possible a part of the old stump which was my seat. Just in front an
old four-rail fence wandered across the deserted pasture, struggling
against the blackberry vines, which grew profusely about it and seemed
to be tugging at the lower rail to pull the old fence down to ruin. On
either side it disappeared into thickets of birch and oak and pitch
pine, planted, as were the blackberry vines, by birds that stopped to
rest a moment on the old fence or to satisfy their curiosity. Stout
young trees had crowded it aside and broken it. Here and there a