“Tiptoe appealed to Red-Boy, and naturally he stood up for his mate.
“Old Susan went lumbering off to her nest with a worried face. She could do nothing, and hoped for the best. Time went by, and two eggs were laid and hatched out. Tiptoe was a very restless mother, and was always flying off her nest to stretch her wings, and for that reason it was good for her to be near her mother-in-law, for Susan often checked her. If it had been cold weather the young ones would have suffered from being left uncovered so much, but fortunately it was midsummer. One frightfully hot day, when the sun was pouring on the nest through that broken window high up in the peak of the barn—”
“Where?” asked Billie, stretching out her neck.
“Right up there, this side of the maple tree.”
“Yes, I see,” said Billie, and she lay down again on her cushion.
“This hot sun shining through the glass set
fire to the matches, and wasn’t there a quick blaze! Some robins who nested outside the barn gave the alarm by crying out shrilly and swooping wildly about the yard. The landlady of the house where Chummy lives heard the noise, looked out, then rushed to the telephone. We are close to a fire station, and in just a few minutes an engine came dashing down the street and put the fire out. It was only a little blaze, but it was a very sad one. Tiptoe, as I said before, was a silly mother, but still she was a mother, and when she saw her frightened little ones rising up in their nest and clacking their tiny beaks at the blaze she flew right into the flame and hovered over them.”
“Of course she died,” said Billie.
“Oh, yes. She must have breathed flame and choked in an instant.
“The next day, Chummy says, he saw poor Red-Boy poking about the barn floor looking at a little dry burnt thing. His heart was broken, and he flew away and no one here ever saw him any more.”