“I’m going to give my robin a name,” said Mary. “I call him Brown-Eyes.”
“And I call mine Tip-Top,” said Jamie, “because I know he’ll be a tip-top bird.”
“And I call mine singer,” said Alice.
“I ’all mine Toddy,” said little Toddlie, who would not be behindhand in anything that was going on.
“Hurrah for Toddlie!” said Charlie, “hers is the best of all. For my part, I call mine Speckle.”
So then the birds were all made separate characters by having each a separate name given it. Brown-Eyes, Tip-Top, Singer, Toddy, and Speckle made, as they grew bigger, a very crowded nestful of birds.
Now the children had early been taught to say in a little hymn:—
“Birds in their little nests agree,
And ’tis a shameful sight