“Seating herself under the tree, began to sob as if her
heart would break.”—Page [96.]
CHAPTER VIII.
When the sparrow awoke the next morning he found his little mate had been up some time and had given the young sparrows their breakfast; so he made a hasty toilet, and then flew off to find something to eat.
He remembered just where the finest worms were to be found, and he ate a few and saved two of the largest and fattest for his little wife.
Nancy was coming out of the gate as he flew in, and was starting out for her day’s work with her basket of matches on her arm.
“Good-by, dear Billy,” she said, as he lighted on the rickety gate and looked at her. “Don’t run away again, I miss you so dreadfully.”
The sparrow laid the worms carefully on the top bar of the gate, but kept one eye on them for fear they would crawl away.
“You’ll see me back in a day or two,” he said with a cheerful nod of the head, “and it’s a pity you don’t know that your hard days are ’most over. Keep up courage, little Nancy, and you’ll soon be as happy as a queen.”
“That was a very cheerful little song,” she said. “I see you’re taking those great fat worms home to your wife. I suppose she’ll like them as well as we do sausages, though.”