To a person of my tastes it is one of winter's capital recommendations that it brings its own birds with it, thus affording sundry ornithological pleasures which otherwise one would be compelled to go without. The tree-sparrows, for instance, are very good cold-weather acquaintances of mine. There is nothing peculiarly taking about their dress or demeanor; but they are steady-going, good-humored, diligent people, whose presence you may always depend upon. I lately witnessed a very pretty trick of theirs. It was in the marsh just over the fence from Beacon Street, where a company of the birds, a dozen perhaps, were breakfasting off the seeds of evening primrose. Less skillful acrobats than their neighbors and frequent traveling companions, the red-poll linnets, it is not easy for them to feed while hanging upon the pods. So, taking the weeds one by one, they alighted at the very tip, and then with various twitchings and stampings shook the stalk as violently as possible, after which they dropped quickly upon the snow to gather up the results of their labors. As I say, it was an extremely pretty performance, and by itself would have rewarded me for my morning tramp, putting me in mind, as it did, of happy hours long since past, when I climbed into the tops of nut-trees on business of the same sort. One of the principal uses of friendship, human or other, is this of keeping the heart young.
I hope I am not lacking in a wholesome disrespect for sentimentality and affectation; for artificial ecstasies over sunsets and landscapes, birds and flowers; the fashionable cant of nature-worship, which is enough almost to seal a true worshiper's lips under a vow of everlasting silence. But such repugnances belong to the library and the parlor, and are left behind when a man goes abroad, either by himself or in any other really good company. For my own part the first lisp of a chickadee out of a wayside thicket disperses with a breath all such unhappy and unhallowed recollections. Here is a voice sincere, and the response is instantaneous and irresistible.
It would be a breach of good manners, an inexcusable ingratitude, to write never so briefly of the New England winter without noting this, the most engaging and characteristic enlivener of our winter woods; who revels in snow and ice, and is never lacking in abundant measures of faith and cheerfulness, enough not only for himself, but for any chance wayfarer of our own kind. He is every whit as independent as the shrike, but in how opposite a manner!--with a self-reliance that is never self-sufficiency, and bravery that offers no suspicion of bravado. Happy in himself, he is at the same time of a most companionable spirit. Perfect little philosopher! What a paradise New England would be if all her inhabitants were like him!