Charlie’s West India wood was constantly coming into use, for one thing or another, and Joe Griffin could not have given him a more acceptable or useful present.
He also used his skeins of willow for winding the legs of the three chairs he made, one for his mother, one for Hannah Murch, and one for Mrs. Hadlock. The legs were made of stout willow, and wound with these bands.
He presented work-baskets to his mother, Mrs. Rhines, and her daughters, and Aunt Molly Bradish, and expressed his determination to make some baskets the next winter to send over to the mill, that people might see them.
What was his delight on going out one night, after supper, to get some willows he had put to soak in the brook, to see a company of swallows he disturbed fly off in the direction of the barn, with their bills full of clay! Following them, he saw, with great joy, some of them fly into the holes he had cut in the barn, while others deposited their burdens beneath the eaves outside.
By that he knew that two kinds of swallows had come to take up their abode, and were building their nests—barn-swallows and eave-swallows.
He was not long in getting to the house with the glad tidings, which delighted his mother as much as himself.
“I think,” she said, “eave-swallows are the prettiest things in the world, they look so cunning sticking their heads out of a little round hole in their nest!”
“Yes, mother, and I’ve seen them two stories on Captain Rhines’s barn—one nest right over the other.”
It seemed as if a kind Providence had determined to remunerate Charlie for his disappointment in respect to the boat. He kept his goose, with her goslings, in a large pen near the barn, while the wild gander was let out every day to go where he liked. The great body of wild geese were now gone; but a few stragglers from broken flocks still remained, and were not considered worth the attention of gunners.
A brush fence ran across the island behind the barn, dividing the field from the pasture. Great was Charlie’s surprise, when coming one day to dinner, he saw the gander in conversation with a wild goose through the fence. He could not fly over the fence, as one wing was mutilated, therefore was trying to persuade the goose to fly over to him. The goose, on the other hand, being lonely,—the rest of the flock probably having been shot,—was desirous of company, but afraid to venture. The gander would walk along one side of the fence, and the goose the other, a little ways, and then stop and talk the matter over. Charlie ran and made a hole in the fence, right abreast the back barn doors, while they were down under the hill out of sight, and opened the barn doors that led into the floor, then hid himself and watched them. They continued walking along till they found the gap, when the gander instantly went through, and joined the goose, making the most strenuous efforts to entice her to follow him through the hole, and finally succeeded; he evidently wished to coax her to the barn, but the goose held off; she would venture a little way, and then go back, her head erect, turning in every direction, and her eyes flashing like balls of fire. It seemed as if the gander would fail in his efforts, and she appeared about to rise and fly away.