“I remember some wrens who always built their nests as close to our back doors as they could get without actually lodging right on the doorstep,” laughed Mrs. James.
“What dear little things they are!” sighed Norma tenderly.
This remark attracted several girls’ attention to Norma and then they stopped their own work to go and see what she was making.
“Well! of all things—just look at Norma’s palace!” exclaimed Janet admiringly.
That brought the other girls around her and she had to explain just what she was doing with the cheese box. “I am following Mrs. Tompkins’s suggestions and plans for my bird house. You see I divided the inside of the box into five flats, and at each apartment I bored a hole. Because they are of different sizes, I hope to have different birds as tenants in it.
“When the partitions were fastened inside, I nailed the cover on the cheese box again. The two large barrel covers that Mrs. Tompkins gave me make the bottom and roof. Because the barrel head is larger than the cheese box, it provides a nice little balcony all around the house. And the other head that is on top for a roof, projects far enough over the cheese box to keep the rain from driving in at the open doors of the apartments.”
“But, Norma, how are you going to keep the water from coming through that flat roof and soaking the birds inside the box?” asked Janet.
“You just wait! I found a fine roof for my house, this afternoon, but I am not ready, yet, to roof the building. I want to nail some brackets on the bottom so the house can be nailed to a pole, then I will roof it and paint it green with white trimmings.”
Accordingly, Norma finished the house and then got out a basket filled with straw. An upright stick was fastened in the center of the top of the house and to this a wire netting was tacked, so that the edges overlapped the eaves of the roof, and the top fitted close to the upright. Upon this wire net Norma wove her thatched roof, which, when finished, looked very attractive and rustic.
“It looks great but it is going to be a dreadful work to fasten it in a tree, because it is so big and bulky,” said Janet.