"My mother says that when I was a baby robin she was kept busy all day long.
"There were four baby birds in the nest. I myself ate about seventy worms in a day. My brother and sisters had as good appetites as I."
"Will you build here in the apple-tree?" asked Phyllis. "I should so like to watch you. Besides, there is a garden just beneath with millions of bugs and insects there."
"Oh, yes," replied the robin. "We shall surely build there. You will find that robins like to build near your home. We have a very friendly feeling towards people. That is the reason that we hop about your lawn so much and that we waken you by singing near your window in the early morning."
"I have heard that robins are not very good nest-builders," said Phyllis. "I was told that a great number of robins' nests were blown down by every hard storm."
"More are destroyed than I like to think about," said the robin. "But my father and mother raised three families of birds in their nest last season.
"Early in the spring they were very busy about their nest-building. First they brought sticks, straw, weeds, and roots. With these they laid the foundation in what seemed a very careless fashion, among the boughs.
"Then here on this foundation they wove the round nest of straws and weeds. They plastered it with mud. They lined it with soft grasses and moss.
"In this nest my mother laid four beautiful greenish-blue eggs. From the first egg that cracked open I crept out. From the three other eggs came my brother and sisters.
"We were not handsome babies. I don't believe bird babies ever are beautiful at first. We had no feathers, and our mouths were so big and yellow.