“Well, I’m shaking it to punish it,” laughed the doctor’s little girl. “I’m shaking it ever so hard. I don’t believe it likes to be shaken. You did have ever so much money in it. I don’t wonder that you wanted the lollypop!”
She slipped the money into her purse and went off to make purchases. Billy told her to get anything that the money would buy. He wanted a bird window that would be the best anybody could have. He waited anxiously for her to come back and when she came, her arms were full.
Billy had to laugh. She had a small evergreen tree that she had bought for thirty-five cents. She had two pounds of sunflower seed that had cost twenty cents--oh, ever so much seed comes for that price and it will last a long time, too. She had a shallow grocery box that was long and flat and without any cover. It was about the length of Billy’s window ledge. She had a package that came from the ten cent store. When it was undone, it showed two tin strainers at five cents apiece. Now, what did all this mean?
The doctor’s little girl rolled up her sleeves and put on Billy Williams’ mother’s blue gingham apron. First, she took the shallow grocery box and nailed it to the window ledge. Billy was surprised to see that the doctor’s little girl could drive a long nail almost as well as he himself!
“That’s the bird-shelf,” she explained. “You sprinkle sunflower seed on it every day. The birds can light on its rim. Some days you’ll have as many as twenty at a time. The chickadees are darling and the purple finches are beautiful and they sing too.”
She took a handful of striped gray and white sunflower seed and sprinkled it on Billy’s new bird-shelf. “You’ll have to wait a while till the birds find out about the shelf,” she said, “but it doesn’t take them long.” Then she took the little green fir tree and some stout cord. She tied the wee tree to one side of Billy’s blind. She tied its trunk at top and at bottom with several twists of heavy string. It made the window pretty--almost as if one were looking out over the top of a fir tree. The doctor’s little girl paused after her work and smiled at Billy. “I think that’s nice, don’t you?” she asked.
Billy nodded. “What’s it for?” he inquired.