THE SWALLOWS' NEST.
HARLEY came from school one Friday afternoon. He was going home with his grandfather, at whose house he was to spend the next day. It was the month of May; and the drive of ten miles among the green trees and fields was very delightful.
There were no playmates for Charley at grandpa's; but with a calf at the barn, several broods of chickens, and four kittens, he found enough to occupy his mind. He was up very early in the morning, and it was after ten o'clock when he came into the kitchen rather hungry.
"Look under the cloth on the table, Charley," called his grandma from the sitting-room. "You'll find a little cake I baked for you. Don't you see it?" she asked, coming into the kitchen. "There, that one."
"Oh!" said Charley, "I thought that was a loaf."
Then, taking the cake in his hand, he sat on a rock at the foot of a tree a little distance from the house, and began to eat with great relish.
Not far from him, and a little way from the other buildings, was the corn-barn, and at one end of its roof was a bird-house, which had been taken by two little birds for their home. Charley saw one bird come out and fly away. While she was gone, her mate kept watch at a short distance to see that no harm came to the eggs that were within.
Charley noticed, that, in flying, these birds had different motions from the sparrows and robins which lived about his own home in the city, and, when he went nearer, he saw that they were swallows.
As he watched them pass in and out of their house, he observed that there was something inside that opened and shut like a door. It was pressed back when the birds went in, and sprang into place again as soon as they were inside. Charley could not make out what it was, and ran to the house to ask about it.
"Grandma," he said, "is there a real door to the swallows' house?"
"They make one for themselves," she answered: "there is no door to the box. You know their house stands where it is exposed to all the winds, and, on some days since they came, they must have felt the cold very much. But I saw one come flying home one day with a turkey's feather in his beak, and they worked away at it very busily until they had placed it as you see. It keeps out the wind, and makes the house much more comfortable."
Charley went back to look at the door again, and wished he could be small enough, for a few minutes, to go inside the bird-house, and see just how it was fastened. But he could not have his wish, and the swallows kept their secret.
SUSAN CHENERY.
