"Pleased to have you, sir," said Joe, making a stiff little bow. "I'd have asked you, only most men folks don't set much store by birds 'nless they are the kind they go gunnin' for. Only pa does. He likes any kind o' bird, whether it sings or not, and he's powerful fond of the Swallows in our chimney. He says they eat the flies and things that tease the cows down in the pasture, and since those Swallows came to our chimney we haven't had to put fly-sheets on the oxen when they are in the pasture—not once."
"Now, children, you see what good the Sky Sweepers do," said the Doctor.
"Sky Sweepers! We don't call 'em that! We call 'em Chimney Swallows!"
Then the children told Joe about the Bird Brotherhoods.
"Stand on this box," said Joe to Dodo, "and look hard at that small slantways branch, with the little bunch on it!"
"The little round bunch that looks like soft green moss?"
"Yes. Well, that's the Hummer's nest!"
"Oh! oh!" cried Dodo, forgetting to whisper, "I see a mite of a tail and a sharp needle beak sticking over the edge!"
This was too much for Mrs. Hummer, who flew off with a whirr like an angry little spinning-wheel—if such a proper Puritan thing is ever angry; and there in the nest were two tiny eggs, like white beans.
"Come back by the fence and watch," said Joe. "She doesn't like to leave the nest much when it is toward night."