After nearly three hours of waiting, we made up our minds that these young folk must be out some time during the day, unless they had decided to take up permanent quarters in that hole in the stump, and what was more to the point, that the weather was too warm to await their very deliberate movements. So we left them, to get off the best way they could without us, or to stay there all their lives, if they so desired.
The nest, which at first was exceedingly picturesque—and I had resolved to bring it away, with the stump that held it—was now so demolished that I no longer coveted it. The last and sweetest song of the wren, "Shame-ber-ee!" rang out joyously as we turned our faces to the north, and bade a long farewell to the Great Carolinians.
XVI.
THE APPLE-TREE NEST.
All day long in the elm, on their swaying perches swinging,
New-fledged orioles utter their restless, querulous notes.
Harriet Prescott Spofford.
The little folk let out the secret, as little folk often do, and after they had called attention to it, I was surprised that I had not myself seen the pretty hammock swinging high up in the apple boughs.