The carriage which had been winding up the drive, stopped in front of the old-fashioned, wide piazzaed country home. It did seem a pity that anybody should feel doleful coming to such a pleasant place as that; but Herbert felt doleful; as he stood with his hand in his pockets, and stared down the country road, he winked hard to keep back the tears, when he thought of the boys in town having their military drill at this hour. Meanwhile his father and mother, and Peter and Hannah, bustled about, opening doors and windows, and planning where the luggage should be set down. Presently Herbert heard an exclamation from his mother. “For pity’s sake!” she said—and in the next breath—
“Herbert, come here and see what I have found!”
So Herbert swallowed hard, and brushed away a tear or two, and went round to the side piazza from where his mother’s voice had sounded, and saw a sight which made him go on tiptoe and gaze in delight.
Pushed back, well under shelter from the summer storms, in the southeast corner of the piazza, was an old, somewhat dilapidated willow chair, large and very comfortable in its time, but which had long since been assigned to the piazza, and not considered worth bringing in out of the dews or the rain. In the fall when the family closed the house, the old chair had been forgotten. It had stood there all winter, deserted and lonely. But in the spring it had evidently been mistaken by a certain family as a house which was for rent, and they had rented it and moved in and set up housekeeping on a splendid scale; the consequences were, that fastened ingeniously to the back of the chair was a luxurious nest, most carefully woven, and within it at this moment were three of the prettiest speckled eggs that Herbert had ever seen. In fact his knowledge of birds’ eggs was limited; he had seen but very few.
“O, mother!” he said softly, “how pretty it is. There is one of the birds on the branches near by—a splendid fellow. Where is his mate, do you suppose?”
“Not far away, you may depend,” said his mother. “What a cunning place it is in which to build a house. How fortunate that the chair is so near that door instead of the other one. We can get along for awhile without opening that door at all, and they can raise their family without having trouble. If I were you, Herbert, I would adopt them and look after their interests and help to bring up their young ones; wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Well,” said Herbert, with more glee than he had shown since he had left his city home, “I believe I will. I will call that fellow up there on the bush Denny, and he and I will be companions this summer.”
“That will be splendid,” said Mrs. Westwood, very much pleased, for Denny was the short for “Denison,” her boy’s best friend in town. It was certainly a delicate compliment to name the bird after him, and showed to the mother the degree of friendship which Herbert meant to cultivate.
“We shall get along comfortably now,” she said to her husband laughingly; “he has adopted the birds in the old chair, and named the singer ‘Denny,’ so he will not lack for companionship.”
Ah! I wish I could tell you about the lovely summer. Never was a brighter, more congenial companion than Denny. He sang his sweetest songs for the lonesome boy, and accepted his overtures of friendship in the most genial manner possible. Before the season was over not only he but his wife would allow Herbert to come close enough to the old chair to drop special dainties into the nest for the children, and were voluble in their thanks. More than that, Denny actually learned to come and perch himself on Herbert’s finger and eat sugar out of his hand. And one of the children grew so fond of Herbert that she took many a walk perched on his shoulder, chirping occasionally to let him know that she was there, and was happy.