THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW
Bobby Bobolink and his wife had talked a good deal about the home they were going to have.
And unlike some people, who are forever planning things but never begin the actual doing of them, they soon set to work to build their nest.
First, of course, they had to find a pleasant place for it. So they looked the ground over carefully. Bobby Bobolink favored the exact center of the big meadow building site, for he said that if Johnnie Green ever came into the meadow he was more likely to take a short cut[p. 38] across a corner of it than he was to walk straight through the middle.
"You may not know," he said to his wife, "that Farmer Green doesn't care to have the grass on the farm trampled down."
But Mrs. Bobolink replied that there were other things to think of. She said that she liked to live in a rather moist place—that such a spot was comfortable in hot weather. And furthermore she wanted to be near water. "If you need a drink on a warm day it's not always convenient to go far out of your way for it," she pointed out.
Well, Bobby Bobolink saw at once that Mrs. Bobolink had made up her mind, and there was no use trying to change it. Besides, he wanted to please her.
"Then, my dear, where would you like to have our house built?" he asked.
[p. 39]"I should prefer to settle in the lower end of the meadow, near Cedar Swamp," she replied. "The ground thereabouts is just damp enough to suit me. And there's always plenty of water to drink in the swamp.... Besides," she added, "it's somewhat marshy in that part of the meadow.
"And you won't find Johnny Green trespassing down there. He might get his feet wet!"