Bud did not seem to be troubled at all, but lay rocking in her blue cradle and laughing at the young linnets who peeped curiously over the edge of it.
"She must have something to eat," said the papa, flying off.
"And some clothes," added the mamma, bustling about.
But when a nice, fat worm was brought, Bud covered her face and cried with a shiver,—
"No, no! I cannot eat that ugly thing."
"Get a strawberry," said the mamma; and she tried to wrap the largest, softest feather that lined her nest round the naked little maid.
But Bud kicked her small legs out of it at once, and stood up, saying with a laugh,—
"I'm not a bird; I cannot wear feathers. Give me a pretty green leaf for a gown, and let me look about this big world where I find myself all at once."
So the linnet pulled a leaf and pecked two holes for Bud's arms, and put it on like a pinafore; for she never had dressed a baby and did not know how, her own children being born with down coats which soon changed to gray feathers. Bud looked very pretty in her green dress as she sat on the edge of the nest staring about with her blue eyes and clapping her hands when the papa came flying home with a sweet wild berry in his bill for her breakfast. She ate it like an apple, and drank a drop of dew that had fallen in the night; then she began to sing so sweetly that all the neighbors came to see what sort of bird Dame Linnet had hatched.
Such a twittering and fluttering as went on while they talked the matter over, asked many questions, and admired the pretty little creature who only knew her name and nothing more!