Feed your flock. Leave a fruitcake in the backyard.
From Alfred at Christmas, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
The Dunleavys put out their Christmas fruitcake on the stump by the fence this morning, the whole brick of it, and by noon there were eleven of us on it, four species, plus Switch and two squirrels I had never seen before. For years I thought generosity was a matter of aim, that you fed the one you meant to feed and the rest was waste. I had opinions about handouts. But nobody sorted themselves by invitation out there; the jays came, the juncos came, a possum turned up after dark and nobody argued. Feed your flock, leave a fruitcake in the backyard. What I cannot work out is whether the flock was already a flock or whether the stump made one.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
