Birds have a very happy childhood. It will pay any child or grown person to spend a whole summer or autumn in studying them and their ways. This would be much better than wishing one could go somewhere, when one hasn't the money to go with, or being unhappy because one hasn't fine clothes and houses.
Young birds do not seem to be very much afraid of us. They only look a little surprised and try to hop a bit faster if we go too near them.
See how queer the tops of their heads look, with the baby down still sticking out in little tufts through the thicker feathers. Their lips, too, along the edges of the bill!—how yellow they are, as though they had just been eating new spring butter.
Those soft yellow lips will soon turn dark and hard from use, just as a real baby's feet lose their pink softness and grow callous when the child goes barefoot a while.
Altogether, bird children are very interesting, and one who loves them never gets tired of watching them. There is something new and charming to learn every day. We wonder that there are any unhappy or cross or sulky people in the world, when they may have the birds to teach them better.
There is many a kind little boy who picks up a child bird and puts it in a high place out of reach of cats and naughty boys. These may be sure that the mother bird will find her young one, and you may hear her thanking you, if you listen. Besides, every time a boy is good to a child bird he has made his own childhood richer and happier.
O happy little bird-child, full of life and glee,
Won't you stay this summer in the yard with me?
You shall have some berries when the berries grow;
Berries don't hurt children—mother told me so.
