The things we do!

Yet Freckles scowled darkly as he came down the trail, and the
running TAP, TAP that tested the sagging wire and telegraphed word
of his coming to his furred and feathered friends of the swamp, this
morning carried the story of his discontent a mile ahead of him.
Freckles' special pet, a dainty, yellow-coated, black-sleeved, cock
goldfinch, had remained on the wire for several days past the bravest
of all; and Freckles, absorbed with the cunning and beauty of the tiny
fellow, never guessed that he was being duped. For the goldfinch was
skipping, flirting, and swinging for the express purpose of so holding
his attention that he would not look up and see a small cradle of
thistledown and wool perilously near his head. In the beginning of
brooding, the spunky little homesteader had clung heroically to the wire
when he was almost paralyzed with fright. When day after day passed
and brought only softly whistled repetitions of his call, a handful of
crumbs on the top of a locust line-post, and gently worded coaxings, he
grew in confidence.


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