“But where are the eggs?” asked Tommy Smith. “I don’t see them, and I don’t see any nest either. But what—Oh! there is the mother peewit sitting on the ground,” he cried out suddenly. And so she was, with her eggs underneath her. This time she did not fly away, for the father peewit had told her not to be uneasy.
“Oh, but there is no nest,” said Tommy Smith. “She is sitting on the bare ground.”
“Bare, indeed!” exclaimed the mother peewit. “There is plenty of sand on the ground, and what more can one want? Just look!” and as she spoke she moved a little to one side, and there, in a slight hollow, Tommy Smith saw four—no, three eggs, and something else, something that was soft and fluffy, so it could not be an egg, although it was the same size, and the same sort of colour, yellowish, with black spots. Why, could that be a little baby peewit? Yes, indeed it was, for it moved a little, and made a little chirping noise.
“Don’t touch him,” cried the father peewit. “He is too young for that.”
“And little boys are so rough,” said the mother peewit.
“But you may look at him,” said the father peewit.
“Oh yes, do,” said the mother peewit; “and tell me what you think of him. Isn’t he the prettiest little fluffy thing in the whole world?”
“Until the others are hatched,” said the father peewit. “Then there will be three more, you know.”
“To be sure there will,” said the mother peewit, looking very proud; “and they will all be as pretty as each other. But I think this one will be the cleverest,” she added. “There was a certain something in the way he chipped the shell, and he has lain in a thoughtful attitude ever since he came out.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said the father peewit. And then they both looked up at Tommy Smith, as if they expected him to say something.