“Oh, do not look worried, I shall not keep you more than half an hour,” she said, as she saw the boys were quite as curious about untying their parcels as the girls. So, following her lead, they trudged off up the lane, past the barn and woodpile, to where the brush on either side narrowed it to a mere path. Then, where another lane crossed it, the way grew broader again, and while one side was screened by woods, from the other you could look out upon a stretch of waste meadows and fallow fields. There was only enough snow to crunch underfoot, and as Gray Lady walked ahead, a sprig of holly fastened at the neck of her gray chinchilla collar, and another in the close fitting hat of the same fur, her arms buried to the elbows in a great muff, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, and a rosy spot on each cheek made by the keen air, the boys cast many glances of genuine admiration at her. The big boys, especially, felt that she understood the situation exactly, by taking them to walk without the girls, giving them her confidence, and planning something for them to do that would be different from girls’ work, or, at least, apart from it. “Perhaps some of the others have told you,” Gray Lady said to the big boys as they walked, “that I am very anxious not only to feed the small tree birds, that they may stay with us in winter, but to try and help the Grouse and Quail, so that, instead of those that have escaped the dangers of the hunting season being driven out by hunger and cold, they shall live on and increase, and become again the friends to the farmers that they were in the old days. “You big boys all know how much complaint there is of all kinds of new bugs and worms and blights that discourage the farmers and leave but little profit in their crops? As you learn to watch wild birds and their habits, and realize the way in which they work for their living the year round, you will see that it is largely the lack of these old residents, these birds who were here before man came, that allows all the new-fangled bugs to gain such headway. “Now, while it is quite easy for all of us to have some sort of a lunch-counter, either on a window-ledge, tree-trunk, or shed roof,—anywhere, in short, where cats will not venture,—feeding the larger game-birds is not such a simple matter, for until they thoroughly understand our motives, they will not come to us; we must take food to them. “Birds that are hunted everywhere, for at least two months in a year, cannot be expected the day after the season closes to come boldly to our houses for food, as if they could consult a calendar, and say to one another, ‘To-day is December first, we may go and take a walk in the open road in safety.’ “Neither would they be safe, for there are always, I am sorry to say, cowards in every township who will set snares, and get by stealth what they dare not take openly. And, of the two, I think the snare a greater danger to the poor birds than the gun.”