Before noon the old birds came; the wire netting was removed from the window, both parents coming at short intervals into the kitchen with food.
To my surprise they did not return the following morning, when I fully intended to speed the parting guest, though the little one was placed in a cage outside the door. The helpless infant was left in an orphaned condition to my care; he could not feed himself, nor did he understand, under my tutelage, how to open his beak when food was brought. It was necessary to pry it open, the lunches coming so often that nearly all my time was spent in attending to his meals. That very evening the chore-boy brought a lank, long-legged bobolink which was given into my keeping only because it was threatened with starvation.
Like the oriole he was too young to feed himself and had been for twelve hours without food.
A more uninviting specimen of babyhood could not be imagined, forlorn, ragged, with unfeathered spaces upon his homely little body; but, though he had none of the oriole's commanding beauty, he was sure to perish unless regularly adopted and his infant wants supplied.
He was placed in the cage while the oriole was taking a nap, the introduction prefaced by being stuffed till his bare little crop was as round and full as an egg. Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, who was with me at the time, assisted at the christening of the pair.
As the oriole was always peeping we called him "Peepsy;" the bobolink was named "Robert" with due respect to the Robert-o-Lincoln family.
They were oftenest called "the twins," and troublesome twins they were, waking me at three o'clock each morning and crying loudly for their breakfast, which was prepared the previous evening.
Peepsy was first taken in my hand and given a few mouthfuls, then Robert's turn came, after which Peepsy was thoroughly fed and when Robert's demands were appeased, both birds were returned to the cage for another nap.
After sleeping innocently for another hour they awoke, insisting with emphatic protest upon an immediate supply of rations.
There were times when they jerked their heads from side to side and not a morsel was safely lodged or appropriated, persisting in the clamor until, after patient effort, both little creatures were satisfied at last.