Autumn was best for this, better than spring. Then, at midday, he would pause and eat the pasty that his wife had baked for him and, sitting on the cliff’s edge, would watch the birds. It pleased him when he was given a bank to build up or a gate to mend at the far end of the peninsula, where the sea surrounded the farmland on either side. He worked three days a week, and they gave him the lighter jobs: hedging, thatching, repairs to the farm buildings.Īlthough he was married, with children, his was a solitary disposition he liked best to work alone. Nat Hocken, because of a wartime disability, had a pension and did not work full time at the farm. The earth was rich where the plow had turned it. The leaves had lingered on the trees, golden-red, and the hedgerows were still green. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft. On December the third, the wind changed overnight, and it was winter. I have reproduced du Maurier’s original short story up on here for your pleasure with zero permission and here shall it remain until such time when I am sued for copyright infringement. It was first published in du Maurier’s 1952 collection, “The Apple Tree”. The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name, “The Birds” is a novelette by British writer Daphne du Maurier.
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