“Bees and birds,” commented Mary Frances softly, “keep us from starving. How wonderful it all seems. Why, Billy, it must have all been planned out when God made the world!”
“I have thought of that myself, Mary Frances,” said Billy; “it’s one of those thoughts a fellow doesn’t often speak out loud. I don’t know why.”
“Everybody ought to take care of birds,” went on Mary Frances. “Surely the reason they don’t, is because they do not understand how wonderfully they help us. Do you recall Miss Carey’s poem—‘An Order for a Picture’? I learned a part of it in my literature course last winter:
* * * * * * *
“‘Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat:
The berries we gave her she wouldn’t eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,