The summer of this particular season that the children always remembered afterward as “the year when Miss Letty came,” was very warm indeed, and Anne established a midday retreat in her beloved old apple tree, or rather two retreats. One was high up in the broad branches where you could look down into various birds’ nests. A few slats, placed long ago by Obi, the garden boy, had been added to by Baldy, so that the perch had places for three. The other was a sort of house below, furnished with chairs, a table, and hammocks. This gave shelter above and below even in rainy weather, and from it in different directions the lawn, garden, shrubbery, kennels, and distant hills could be seen with all their inhabitants of flowers, butterflies, birds, and fourfooted animals.
Anne called this place the “time eater,” because, as she said, “you go there to stay a minute, or you sit down to read, but you don’t come away and you don’t read; you simply look and listen, and before you know it is dinner time, and the morning is all eaten up.”
The things that Anne and Tommy heard there as they spent their vacation time together were Heart of Nature’s own stories, and it was his own voice that told them.
It was also a good point of vantage from which to watch the play of the dogs, and Anne discovered one thing beyond question, that where dogs live and are fed there the birds gather. In fact, during the nesting season that year the doings of the birds and little beasts that fed from the dogs’ table would fill a whole book.
Anne and Tommy.
At the north of the nursery kennel was a broad-topped stone fence. Being convenient and of exactly the right height, Anne used a wide hollow stone as a mortar for pounding the dog biscuit, taking a narrow stone for a pestle, for the Waddles family all preferred drinking their milk or soup, and having the biscuit in bits the size of small lumps of sugar so that it could be gnawed like a bone, to having it soaked into pulpy stew. Of course there was cracker dust left in the mortar, and little bits would fly about here and there. But no matter how much dust was left at evening, the next morning found this place as clean as if it had been scrubbed, so Anne began to watch.
There was a pair of song-sparrows that had their second nest in a great rose-bush by the walk, and though the parents gave their nestlings only insect food, they fed upon the biscuit crumbs. These two soon grew so tame that when they had cleaned the wall they hopped about the dog houses and helped themselves from the dishes, giving shy little flutters if the twins barked at them, but only going a few feet and returning very quickly.
Then there were the chipping sparrows, the dear little brown velvet-capped birds, who are so tame that the Latin word for sociable is part of the name the wise men give them. They actually hopped on Waddles’s back and almost caught the moist bits that fell from his jaws.