NELLY HART WOODWORTH.
IN THE latter part of May a pair of Baltimore orioles built a nest in my maples, from which, eventually, a brood of noisy fledglings were launched upon the world. A quantity of Hamburg embroidery was woven into the nest and festooned gracefully from the outside.
This was obtained from my neighbor's washing as it lay bleaching upon the grass, a task demanding more time and strength than seemed necessary for useless ornamentation.
To all appearance the esthetic taste of the builders was more pronounced than was their family discipline.
The children were a clamoring, rollicking group, pushing each other about and insisting, forcibly, upon a high point of view that constantly threatened their frail lives. I was in constant fear lest they come tumbling down and it was not long before my worst fears were realized.
They fell, with a shower, upon the morning of the 23rd of June, tumbling pell-mell into the strawberry bed, the biggest baby picking himself up in a hurry, and climbing upon one of the fence wires.
The other nestlings were marched off by the head of the family to other fields of observation, the first little bird hopping from the fence to a wild rosebush that grew beside the kitchen door.
There he was fed by his father during the day; as his mother did not appear I inferred that she had her hands full with the other children.
Neither parent appearing the next morning, the first baby was put into a grape basket upon the window-sill.