s turned down and out--didn't you notice?--and they're all bushy
at the ends like a squirrel's tail. Oh, they're lots different! That's
a larch 'way ahead--that one with the branches all scraggly and close
down to the ground. I could start to climb that easy; but I couldn't
that pine over there. See, it's 'way up, up, before there's a place for
your foot! But I love pines. Up there on the mountains where I lived,
the pines were so tall that it seemed as if God used them sometimes to
hold up the sky."

And Simeon Holly heard, and said nothing; and that he did say
nothing--especially nothing in answer to David's confident assertions
concerning celestial and terrestrial architecture--only goes to show
how well, indeed, the man was learning to look at the world through
David's eyes.

Nor were these all of David's friends to whom Mr. and Mrs. Holly were
introduced on that memorable walk. There were the birds, and the
squirrels, and, in fact, everything that had life. And each one he
greeted joyously by name, as he would greet a friend whose home and
habits he knew. Here was a wonderful woodpecker, there was a beautiful
bluejay. Ahead, that brilliant bit of color that flashed across their
path was a tanager. Once, far up in the sky, as they crossed an open
space, David spied a long black streak moving southward.

"Oh, see!" he exclaimed. "The crows! See them?--'way up there? Wouldn't
it be fun if we could do that, and fly hundreds and hundreds of miles,
maybe a thousand?"

"Oh, David," remonstrated Mrs. Holly, unbelievingly.

"But they do! These look as if they'd started on their winter journey
South, too; but if they have, they're early. Most of them don't go till
October. They come back in March, you know. Though I've had them, on
the mountain, that stayed all the year with me."

"My! but I love to watch them go," murmured David, his eyes following
the rapidly disappearing blackline. "Lots of birds you can't see, you
know, when they start for the South. They fly at night--the woodpeckers
and orioles and cuckoos, and lots of others. They're afraid, I guess,
don't you? But I've seen them. I've watched them. They tell each other
when they're going to start."

"Oh, David," remonstrated Mrs. Holly, again, her eyes reproving, but
plainly enthralled.

"But they do tell each other," claimed the boy, with sparkling eyes.
"They must! For, all of a sudden, some night, you'll hear the signal,
and then they'll begin to gather