Then when the work was done there were the kittens in the barn and the swing in the apple-tree. A pond in the pasture sailed their shingle boats. A pile of sand, left from building the new ice-house, furnished material for innumerable forts and castles. There was a sunny field and a green, leafy orchard. How could they help but be happy? It was summer time and they were together.
Steven's was more than a brotherly devotion. It was with almost the tenderness of mother-love that he watched the shining curls dancing down the walk as Robin chased the toads through the garden or played hide-and-seek with the butterflies.
"No, the little fellow's scarcely a mite of trouble," Mrs. Dearborn would say to the neighbors sometimes when they inquired. "Steven is real handy about dressing him and taking care of him, so I just leave it mostly to him."
Mrs. Dearborn was not a very observing woman or she would have seen why he "was scarcely a mite of trouble." If there was never a crumb left on the doorstep where Robin sat to eat his lunch, it was because Big Brother's careful fingers had picked up every one. If she never found any tracks of little bare feet on the freshly scrubbed kitchen floor, it was because his watchful eyes had spied them first, and he had wiped away every trace.
He had an instinctive feeling that if he would keep Robin with him he must not let any one feel that he was a care or annoyance. So he never relaxed his watchfulness in the daytime, and slept with one arm thrown across him at night.
Sometimes, after supper, when it was too late to go outdoors again, the restless little feet kicked thoughtlessly against the furniture, or the meddlesome fingers made Mrs. Dearborn look at him warningly over her spectacles and shake her head.
