One day when the children went near the nest, they heard little peeping sounds, and ran to tell Joe. He came and lifted up the little bantam hen, although she scolded and pecked at him; and in the nest Bobby and Betty saw six little pheasant chicks and one egg that did not hatch. The pheasant chicks were little brown downy things, and Joe took hen, chicks, nest and all, and made a little coop for them under the orchard trees. The little chicks were very lively and very shy—not like hen chicks; they loved to run away and hide in the grass, and the children could hardly find them at all when they looked for them. Mother Bantam would cluck and run back and forth in the coop and call to them, she was so afraid something would happen. At last, one day, Joe decided to let the little bantam run with her brood, and show them how to scratch and find worms. So he took away the slats from the foot of the coop, and Mrs. Bantam stepped out.
The children saw the hen and chicks in the orchard grass. The little pheasants ran through the orchard and the little bantam hen followed them. What became of them nobody knew, and they have never been seen since. Joe thinks they are still out in the woods, and that the little pheasants are teaching their mother how to get her own food there.—Selected.
"Not mighty deeds make up the sum
Of happiness below:
But little acts of kindliness,
Which any child may show."
The pine woodland was dark and sweet and cool, and grandmother and little Emily were walking through it, hand in hand, enjoying its peace and fragrance. The trees grew so closely on either side of the narrow path that hardly a glimpse of blue sky could be seen overhead, and not a shaft of golden sunlight was bold enough to shine down through the glossy pine needles, as both were thinking.
"Why, yes there is!" little Emily called suddenly, as if answering her own thoughts aloud. "There's a sunbeam over there—right where the trees are thickest!"
Grandmother and she hurried to the spot; it seemed a little strange that the sunlight should have filtered down through such dense shade. And when they reached it, it was not sunshine at all. It was a delicate spray of clustered yellow bells, swaying from a slender thread of vine, and filling the spring air with delicious perfume.
"Oh, it's jasmine!" grandmother and little Emily exclaimed, at the same moment. And a mocking-bird, flying by, stopped a moment to trill a sweet strain, as if he, too, was glad to welcome back this lovely blossom of early spring.