“Well,” said Royal. “Once there were some chimney swallows who built their nests in a great hollow tree. They thought it was a chimney.”
“O Royal,” said Lucy, “they would know, because it was not square.”
“No,” said Royal, “not at all. Chimney swallows don’t understand geometry.”
“What is geometry?” asked Lucy.
“Why, it is about squares and rounds, and all other shapes. Chimney swallows don’t know any thing about it.”
“I should think,” said Lucy, “that, if they could see at all, they could tell whether any thing was square or round.”
“Besides,” said Royal, “some chimneys are round, and perhaps these swallows thought that this was a round chimney. At any rate, they built their nests in it, and found that it was a very good place.
“By and by,” continued Royal, “there came two large gray squirrels, and they built a nest in a small hole pretty near the bottom of the tree, about as high as a man’s head. The hole went in above a branch, and was just big enough for the squirrels to creep in. And it was large enough inside to hold ever so many nuts and acorns.”
“Wasn’t the tree all hollow, from top to bottom?” said Lucy.
“No,” replied Royal, “only a small place at the top, where it had been broken off by the lightning. That let the rain in, and rotted it down some way; but the bottom of the tree was large and strong.