The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dooryard Stories, by Clara Dillingham Pierson, Illustrated by F. C. Gordon

Dooryard Stories

THE VERY RUDE YOUNG ROBINS.

DOORYARD STORIES

BY
CLARA DILLINGHAM PIERSON
Author of “Among the Forest People,” “Night People,” etc.

Illustrated by F. C. GORDON

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

Copyright, 1903
BY
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
Published Sept., 1903

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

To
MY FATHER
WHO FIRST TAUGHT ME TO LOVE
MY DOORYARD FRIENDS

PREFACE

My Dear Little Friends:—These stories are of things which I have seen with my own eyes in my own yard, and the people of whom I write are my friends and near neighbors. Some of them, indeed, live under my roof, and Silvertip has long been a member of our family. So, you see, I have not had to do like some writers—sit down and think and think how to make the people act in their stories. These tales are of things which have really happened, and all I have done is to write them down for you.

Many of them have been told over and over again to my own little boy, and because he never tires of hearing of the time when Silvertip was a Kitten, and about the Wasps who built inside my shutters, I think you may care to hear also. He wants me to be sure to tell how the baby Swift tumbled down the chimney into his bedroom, and wishes you might have seen it in the little nest we made. When I tell these tales to him, I have great trouble in ending them, for there is never a time when he does not ask: “And what did he do then Mother?” But I am telling you as much as I can of how everything happened, and if there was more which I did not see and cannot describe, you will have to make up the rest to suit yourselves.

Besides, you know, there is always much which one cannot see or hear, but which one knows is happening somewhere in this beautiful great world. The birds do not stop living and working and loving when they leave us for the sunny south, and above us, around us, and even under our feet many things are done which we cannot see. As we become better acquainted with the little people who live in our dooryards, we shall see more and more interesting things, and I wish you might all grow to be like my little boy, who is never lonely or in need of a playmate so long as a Caterpillar or a Grasshopper is in sight.

See how many tiny neighbors you have around you, and how much you can learn about them. Then you will find your own dooryard as interesting as mine and know that there are playmates everywhere.

Your friend,

Clara D. Pierson.

Stanton, Michigan,

October 30, 1902.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

SILVERTIP

A VERY small, wet, and hungry Kitten pattered up and down a board walk one cold and rainy night. His fur was so soaked that it dripped water when he moved, and his poor little pink-cushioned paws splashed more water up from the puddly boards every time he stepped. His tail looked like a wet wisp of fur, and his little round face was very sad. “Meouw!” said he. “Meouw! Meouw!”

He heard somebody coming up the street. “I will follow that Gentleman,” he thought, “and I will cry so that he will be sorry for me and give me a home.”

When this person came nearer he saw that it was not a Gentleman at all, but a Lady who could hardly keep from being blown away. He could not have seen her except that Cat’s eyes can see in the dark. “Meouw!” said the Kitten. “Meouw! Meouw!”

“Poor little Pussy!” said a voice above him. “Poor little Pussy! But you must not come with me.”

“Meouw!” answered he, and trotted right along after her. He was a Kitten who was not easily discouraged. He rubbed up against her foot and made her stop for fear of stepping on him. Then he felt himself gently lifted up and put aside. He scrambled back and rubbed against her other foot. And so it was for more than two blocks. The Lady, as he always called her afterward, kept pushing him gently to one side and he kept scrambling back. Sometimes she even had to stand quite still for fear of stepping on him.

“Meouw!” said the Kitten, and he made up his mind that anybody who spoke so kindly to strange Kittens would be a good mistress. “I will stick to her,” he said to himself. “I don’t care how many times she pushes me away, I will scramble back.”

When they turned in at a gate he saw a big house ahead of him with many windows brightly lighted and another light on the porch. “I like that home,” he said to himself. “I will slip through the door when she opens it.”

But after she had turned the key in the door she pushed him back and closed the screen between them. Then he heard her say: “Poor little Pussy! I want to take you in, but we have agreed not to adopt another Cat.” Then she closed the door.

He wanted to explain that he was not really a Cat, only a little Kitten, but he had no chance to say anything, so he waited outside and thought and cried. He did not know that the Lady and her husband feared that Cats would eat the many birds who nested in the trees on the lawn. He thought it very hard luck for a tiny Kitten to be left out in the cold rain while the Lady was reading by a blazing grate fire. He did not know that as she sat by the fire she thought about him instead of her book, for she loved little Kittens, and found it hard to leave any out in the street alone.

While he was thinking and crying, a tall Gentleman with a black beard and twinkling brown eyes came striding up to the brightly lighted porch. “Well, Pussy-cat!” said the Gentleman, and took a bunch of shining, jingling things out of his pocket and stuck one of them into a little hole in the door and turned it. Then the door swung open, and the Gentleman, who was trying to close his umbrella and shake off the rain, called first to the Lady and then to the kitten. “O Clara!” he cried. “Come to see this poor little Kitten. Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty! I know you want to see him. Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty! I should have thought you would have heard him crying. Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!”

The Lady came running out and was laughing. “Yes, John,” she said, “I have had the pleasure of meeting him before. He was under my feet most of the way home from church to-night, and I could hardly bear to leave him outside. But you know what we promised each other, that we would not adopt another Cat, on account of the birds.”

The Gentleman sat down upon the stairs and wiped the Kitten off with his handkerchief. “Y-yes, I know,” he said weakly, “but Clara, look at this poor little fellow. He couldn’t catch a Chipping Sparrow.”

“Not now,” answered the Lady, “yet he will grow, if he is like most Kittens, and you know what we said. If we don’t stick to it we will soon have as many Cats as we did a few years ago.”

The Kitten saw that if he wanted to stay in this home he must insist upon it and be very firm indeed with these people. So he kept on crying and stuck his sharp claws into the Gentleman’s sleeve. The Gentleman said “Ouch!” and lifted him on to his coat lapel. There he clung and shook and cried.

“Well, I suppose we mustn’t keep him then,” said he; “but we will give him a warm supper anyway.” So they got some milk and heated it, and set it in a shallow dish before the grate. How that Kitten did eat! The Lady sat on the floor beside him, and the Gentleman drew his chair up close, and they said that it seemed hard to turn him out, but that they would have to do it because they had promised each other.

The Kitten lapped up his milk with a soft click-clicking of his little pink tongue, and then turned his head this way and that until he had licked all the corners clean. He was so full of warm milk that his sides bulged out, and his fur had begun to dry and stuck up in pointed wisps all over him. He pretended to lap milk long after it was gone. This was partly to show them how well he could wash dishes, and partly to put off the time when he should be thrust out of doors.

THE KITTEN LAPPED UP HIS MILK.

When he really could not make believe any longer, his tongue being so tired, he began to cry and rub against these two people. The Gentleman was the first to speak. “I cannot stand this,” he said. “If he has to go, I want to get it over.” He picked up the Kitten and took him to the door. As fast as he loosened one of the Kitten’s claws from his coat he stuck another one in, and at last the Lady had to help get him free. “He is a regular Rough Rider,” said the Gentleman. “There is no shaking him off.”

The Kitten didn’t understand what a Rough Rider was, but it did not sound like finding a home, so he cried some more. Then the door was shut behind him and he was alone in the porch. “Well,” he said, “I like that house and those people, even if they did put me out. I think I will make them adopt me.” So he cuddled down in a sheltered, dry corner, put his four feet all close together, and curled his tail, as far as it would go, around them. And there he stayed all night.

In the morning, when the rain had stopped and the sun was shining brightly, he trotted around the house and cried. He went up on to another porch, rubbed against the door and cried. The Maid opened the door and put out some milk for him. He could see into the warm kitchen and smell the breakfast cooking on the range. When she came out to get the empty dish, he slipped in through the open door. She said “Whish!” and “Scat!” and “Shoo!” and tried to drive him out, but he pretended not to understand and cuddled quietly down in a corner where she could not easily reach him. Just then some food began to burn on the range and the Maid let him alone. The Kitten did not cry now. He had other work to do, and began licking himself all over and scratching his ears with his hind feet.

When he heard the Gentleman and the Lady talking in the dining-room, he watched his chance and slipped in. He decided to pay the most attention to the Gentleman, for he had been the first to take him up. They were laughing and talking and saying how glad they were that the rain had stopped falling. “I believe, John,” the Lady said, “that if it had not been for me, you would really have kept that Kitten last night.”

“Oh, no,” answered the Gentleman. “We ought not to keep Cats. I think that if it had not been for me you would have kept him.”

Just at that minute the Kitten began climbing up his trousers leg and crying. “Poor little Pussy,” said the Gentleman. “Clara, can’t we spare some of this cream?” He reached for the pitcher. The Kitten began to feel more sure of a home.

“O John, not here?” began the Lady, and the Maid came in to explain how it all happened. The Kitten stuck his claws into the Gentleman’s coat and would not let go. Then he cried some more and waved his tail. He had a very beautiful tail, marked just like that of a Raccoon, and he turned it toward the Lady. He had heard somewhere about putting the best foot forward, and thought that a tail might do just as well. While he was waving his tail at the Lady he rubbed his head against the Gentleman’s black beard.

“If we should keep him, John,” said the Lady, “we ought to call him Silvertip, because he has such a pretty white tip to his tail.” The Kitten waved it again and began to purr.

“If you knew what a strong and fearless fellow he is, you would call him Teddy,” answered the Gentleman, turning over a paper which said in big black letters, “Our Teddy Wins.”

“Call him Teddy Silvertip then,” said the Lady, as she reached for the bell. When the Maid came in answer to her ring, she said, “Belle, please take our Kitten into the kitchen and feed him.” Then the Kitten let go and was carried away happy, for he had found a home. He had also learned how to manage the Lady and the Gentleman, and he was always very firm with them after that.

THE FIGHT FOR THE BIRD-HOUSE

UNDER the cornice of the tool-house was an old cigar-box with a tiny doorway cut in one end and a small board nailed in front of it for a porch. This had been put up for a bird-house, and year after year a pair of Wrens had nested there, until they began to think it really their own. When they left it in the fall to fly south, they always looked back lovingly at it, and talked over their plans for the next summer.

“I think we might better leave this nest inside all winter,” Mrs. Wren always said. “It will seem so much more home-like when we return, and it will not be much trouble to clear it out afterward.”

“An excellent plan, my dear,” her cheerful little husband would reply. “You remember we did so last season. Besides,” he always added, “that will show other birds that Wrens have lived here, and they will know that we are expecting to return, since that is the custom in our family.”

“And then do you think they will leave it for us?” Mrs. Wren would ask. “You know they might want it for themselves.”

“What if they did want it?” Mr. Wren had said. “They could go somewhere else, couldn’t they? Do you suppose I would ever steal another bird’s nesting-place if I knew it?”

“N-no,” said Mrs. Wren, “but not everybody is as unselfish as you.” And she looked at him tenderly.

The Wrens were a most devoted couple,—all in all, about the nicest birds on the place. And that was saying a great deal, for there were many nesting there and others who came to find food on the broad lawn. They were small birds, wearing dark brown feathers on the upper parts of their bodies and lighter grayish ones underneath. Even their bills were marked in the same way, with the upper half dark and the lower half light. Their wings were short and blunt, and they had a habit of holding their tails well up in the air.

People said that Mrs. Wren was very fussy, and perhaps it was true, but even then she was not a cross person. Besides, if she wished to do a thing over five times in order to make it suit her, she certainly had a perfect right to do so. It was she who always chose the nesting-place and settled all the plans for the family. Mr. Wren was quite content to have it so, since that was the custom among Wrens, and it saved him much work. Mr. Wren was not lazy. He simply wanted to save time for singing, which he considered his own particular business. Besides, he never forgot what had happened to a cousin of his, a young fellow who found fault with his wife and insisted on changing to another nesting-place. It had ended in his going, and her staying there and marrying another Wren. So he had lost both his home and his wife by finding fault.

Now the April days had come, with their warm showers and green growing grass. A pair of English Sparrows, who had nested in the woodbine the summer before and raised several large broods of bad-mannered children, decided that they would like to try living in the bird-house. Having been on the place all winter, they began work early. The Blackbirds were already back, and one reminded them that it belonged to the Wrens.

“Guess not now,” said Mr. Sparrow, with a bad look in his eyes. “Nothing belongs to anybody else if I want it. Do you see?” Then he picked up and swallowed a fat Grub which the Blackbird had uncovered for himself and left lying there until he should finish talking. One could hardly blame the Blackbird for being vexed about this, for everybody knows that English Sparrows really prefer seeds, and that this one ate the Grub only to be mean. It did not make the Blackbird any happier to hear his relatives laugh at him in the evergreens above, and he made up his mind to get even with that Sparrow.

The Sparrows pitched all the old nest out of doors and began quarrelling with each other about building their own. They always quarrelled. Indeed, that was the way in which they had courted each other. Mrs. Sparrow had two lovers, and she married the one who would stand the worst pecking from her. “For,” she said, “what is the use of having a husband unless you can beat him when you fight with him?”

Now they stuffed the dainty little bird-house full of straws, sticks, feathers, and anything they could find, until there was hardly room left in which to turn around. They were just beginning to wonder if they must throw some out when they heard the happy song of Mr. Wren.

“Get inside!” cried Mr. Sparrow to his wife. “I will stand on the porch and fight them.”

Down flew Mr. and Mrs. Wren. “Oh, isn’t it pleasant to get home again?” she exclaimed. “But what is that Sparrow doing on our porch?”

“This is our home now,” said Mrs. Sparrow, “and we are very busy. Get out of my way.”

“Your home?” cried the Wrens. “How is that? You lived in the woodbine last season and knew that this was ours. You are surely not in earnest.”

Mr. Wren looked at his wife and she nodded. Then he flew at Mr. Sparrow and they fought back and forth on the grape trellis near by them, in the air, then on the ground. Mrs. Sparrow peeped out of the open door to see if her husband needed help. He was the larger of the two, but not so quick in darting and turning. Now they passed out of sight behind the tool-house and she forgot Mrs. Wren and flew down to see better. She was hardly off the tiny porch when Mrs. Wren darted in. Mrs. Sparrow saw when it was too late what a mistake she had made, and tried to get back. She reached the porch again just in time to have a lot of straws, twigs, and feathers poked into her face by the angry Mrs. Wren.

“I am cleaning house,” said Mrs. Wren. “My house, too! Get out of my way!” Then she pushed out more of the same sort of stuff. Mrs. Sparrow tried to get in, and every time she put her head through the doorway she was pecked by Mrs. Wren. And she deserved it. She called Mr. Sparrow, but he could not help her, and Mr. Wren was so pleased that he sat on top of the tool-house and sang and sang and sang. To look at him you would have thought he was trying to kill himself. He puffed up his throat and swelled up his body and sang so fast that he seemed to be saying about four words at a time.

THE FIGHT FOR THE BIRD HOUSE.

“Good for you! Good for you! Good for you!” he sang. “Stick to it! Stick to it! Stick to it! I’m here! I’m here! I’m here, here, here!”

Mrs. Wren was too busy to say much, but she did a great deal. Every scrap of the nest was thrown out, and as she worked she decided to keep that house if she starved there.

This was in the middle of the morning and she could not get out to feed until late in the afternoon. Mr. Wren found some delicious insects on the grapevines, and tried to carry a few billfuls to his wife, but the Sparrows prevented him. He would have enjoyed his own dinner better if she could have eaten with him. When he asked how she was, she chirped back that she was hungry but would not give up. Mr. Wren spent most of his time walking around the roof of the tool-house in circles, dragging his wings on the shingles, and saying, “Tr-r-r-r-r-r!” He was so angry that sometimes he could not say anything else. The Sparrows sat on the grape trellis and said mean things.

They were still doing this late in the afternoon, while the tree shadows grew longer and longer on the lawn with the lowering of the sun. Suddenly a Blackbird alighted on the trellis. It was the same one whose fat Grub Mr. Sparrow had stolen.

“This has gone far enough,” said he. “This house belongs to the Wrens and they are going to have it. I say so. If I catch either of you Sparrows around here again, I will drive you off the place. I can do it, too. You may think it over until the next time that grapevine is blown against the tool-house. If you do not go then, there will be trouble.” He ruffled up his feathers and glared with his yellow eyes. That was all he had to do. Before the grapevine swayed again, the Sparrows were far away.

The Wrens thanked him, even before Mrs. Wren ate her late dinner. “You are welcome,” he said. “It was just fun for me. I cannot bear those Sparrows, and I hoped they would stay and give me a chance to fight them. How I wish they had stayed!” He looked sad and disappointed.

“I’ll never have another such good chance,” said he. And he never did. Perhaps it was just as well, although there are times when it is not wrong to fight, and the Wrens think this would have been one.

THE FIR-TREE NEIGHBORS

WITH so many trees in the yard, it always seemed a little strange that three families should choose to build so close together in one. Still, it must also be remembered that there were many birds who liked to build near the big house, and thought of that yard as home.

The Lady spoke of this tree as “The Evergreen Apartment House.” The birds simply called it “The Tallest Fir Tree.”

Early in the spring a pair of English Sparrows decided to build there. Perhaps one should say that Mrs. Sparrow decided, since her husband had nothing to say about it, except to murmur “Yes, dear,” when she told him of her choice. They built well up in the tree, and had a big mass of hay, grass, and feathers together there when the Blackbirds came. This would have more than made a nest for most birds. Mrs. Sparrow called it only a beginning, and was always looking for more to add to it.

When the Blackbirds came in a dashing flock, they began hunting for building places and talking it all over among themselves. One mother Blackbird, who had nested on the place the year before, had counted on having that particular tree.

“I decided on it last fall,” said she, “before I went South, and I have been planning for it all winter. I shall build in it just the same.” She shut her bill in such a way that nobody could doubt her meaning exactly what she said. Her husband didn’t like the place particularly well, but she said something to him which settled it. “You need not ruffle up your feathers for me,” she said, “or stand on tip-toe to squeak at me, unless you are willing to live there.”

They built higher than the nest of the English Sparrows. “We have always been well up in the world,” she said, “and we do not care to come down now.” That was all right. One could not blame them for feeling above the English Sparrows.

The English Sparrows had added more stuff to what they had, and the Blackbirds had their nest about half done when a pair of Hairbirds came to look for a comfortable tree. They were a young couple, just married that spring, and very devoted to each other. They did not decide matters in the same way as the English Sparrow, and the Blackbirds.

Although there were eleven other great evergreens in the yard, besides a number of trellises covered with vines, and all the vine-covered porches, there was no place which suited them so well as that particular tree. Yet each was so eager to please the other that it was rather hard to get either to say what he really thought. They perched on the tips of the fir branches and chattered and twittered all morning about it.

“What do you think?” Mrs. Hairbird said.

“What do you?” he replied.

“But I want to know what you think,” she insisted.

“And I would rather know what you think,” said he.

“No, but really,” asked she, “do you like this tree?”

“Do you?” asked Mr. Hairbird.

“Yes, yes,” answered she.

“So do I!” he said, with a happy twitter. “Isn’t it queer how we always like the same things?”

“I wonder if we like the same branch?” said Mrs. Hairbird, after a long pause, in which both picked insects off the fir-tree and ate them.

“Which branch do you like?” asked he. But he could not help looking out of the side of his eye at the one he most fancied. He could not look out of the corner of his eye, you know, because round eyes have no corners, and being a bird his eyes were perfectly round.

“I like that one,” she cried, and laughed to think how easily she had found out his choice. Then he laughed, too, and it was all decided, although Mrs. English Sparrow, fussing around in her mass of hay and feathers above them, declared that she never heard such silliness in her life, and that when she had made up her own mind that was enough. She never bothered her husband with questions. Mr. English Sparrow heard her say this, and thought he would rather like to be bothered in that way.

Mrs. Blackbird thought it all a great joke. “When they have been married as long as I have,” she said, “it wont take so long to decide things.” Mrs. Blackbird laughed at everything, but she was mistaken about this, for the Hairbirds, or Chipping Sparrows, as they are sometimes called, are always devoted and unselfish.

It being the custom in their family, the newcomers built quite low in the tree. Such a happy time as they had. Every bit of grass root which either of them dragged loose and brought to the tree, was the prettiest and stoutest and best they had ever seen. And when it got to the Horsehairs for lining, they visited all the barns for a block around, hunting for them. Once, when Mrs. Hairbird wished for a white hair for one particular place, Mr. Hairbird even watched for a white Horse, and pulled it out of his tail.

You can imagine how surprised the Horse was when he felt that little tweak at his tail, and, looking around, saw a small brown bird pulling at one of his longest hairs. “I am sorry to annoy you,” said this bird, “but Mrs. Hairbird needed a white hair.”

“That is all right,” said the Horse, to whom one hair was a very small matter, and who dearly loved a joke. “Please tell Mrs. Hairbird that my tail is hers if she wishes it.”

“Your tail is hers!” exclaimed Mr. Hairbird, who ought to have seen the joke, since he was not an English Sparrow. “Oh, no, surely not! Surely your tail is not her tail. They are quite different, you know!” Then he understood and hurried away, but not in time to help hearing the Horse laugh.

When the white hair was woven in, the nest was done, and Mrs. Hairbird laid in it four greenish blue eggs with dark brown specks. In the nest above were six greenish white ones with brown and light purple spots. In the nest above that were five dingy streaked and speckled ones. Mrs. Hairbird said that hers were by far the prettiest. “It is not because I laid them,” she said to her husband. “It is not for that reason that I think so, but they really are.”

Mr. and Mrs. Hairbird were the only ones who paid for the chance to build in the tree. They picked insects off the branches, insects that would have robbed the tree of some of its strength.

The Blackbirds would not bother with such small bits of food. The English Sparrows should have paid in the same way, but they would not.

Their great-great-great- —a great many times great- —grandparents were brought over to this country just to eat the insects which were hurting the trees and shrubs, but when they got here they would not do it. “No, indeed,” said they; “we are here now, and we will eat what we choose.” Their great-great-great- —a great many times great- —grandchildren were just like them.

Silvertip often came to sit under this tree. He called it a family tree, because it had so many little families in its branches. He could not climb it. The fine branches and twigs were so close together that he could not get up the trunk, and they were not strong enough for him to step from one to another of them.

As might perhaps have been expected, there was some gossipping among neighbors in this tree. The Blackbirds usually climbed to their nest by beginning at the bottom of the trunk and going around and around it to the top. This took them so close to the other nests that they could not help looking in. At any rate, they didn’t help it.

Mrs. Blackbird told Mrs. Hairbird that the way Mrs. Sparrow kept house was a disgrace to the tree. Mrs. Sparrow told her to be very careful not to leave her eggs or young children alone when the Blackbirds were around, because when they were very hungry they had been known to——! She did not finish her sentence in words, but just ruffled up her feathers and fluttered her wings, which was a great deal meaner. If she were going to say such things about people, you know, she should have said them, and not made Mrs. Hairbird guess the worst part.

Mr. Blackbird said he pitied Mr. Sparrow with all his heart. He knew something what it was to have a wife try to run things, but that if Mrs. Blackbird had ever acted as Mrs. Sparrow did, he would leave her, even if it were in the early spring.

Mr. Sparrow said it was most disagreeable to have such noisy neighbors as the Blackbirds overhead. That if his wife had known they were coming to that tree, she would have chosen another place. “Of course it was too late for her to change when she found it out,” he said. “Her nest was well begun, and she had some very choice straws and feathers which she didn’t care to move. You know how such things get spoiled in carrying them from place to place.”

Most of these things were told to Mrs. Hairbird, because she was at home with the eggs, but she repeated them all to her husband when he came. She even told him how Mr. Sparrow flew down one day just after a quarrel with his wife, and of all the things he had said when angry. It was quite right in Mrs. Hairbird to tell her husband, and yet she never chirped them to another bird. And that also was right.

When people talked these things to her, she always looked bright and pleasant, but she did not talk about them herself. Indeed, she often made excuses for her neighbors when she repeated things to her husband. For instance, when she told what Mrs. Sparrow had said about Mrs. Blackbird, she added: “I suppose that may be so, still I feel sure that Mrs. Blackbird would not eat any of our children unless she were dreadfully hungry.”

You can see what a sweet and wise little person Mrs. Hairbird was, and her husband was exactly like her. No matter how other people quarrelled, they did not. No matter what gossip they heard, they did not repeat it. And it ended just as such things always do.

In late spring, about the time that the Bees were gathering varnish for their homes, and every fir-tree tip had one or two buzzing around it, there was a dreadful quarrel in the family tree. Mrs. Sparrow wanted some grasses from the outside of the Blackbirds’ nest, and she sat on her own and looked at them until she felt she could not live without them. Of course, that was very wrong. She might have forgotten all about them if she had made herself think about something else. Any bird who wants something he ought not to have should do that. She might better have looked down at her own breast, or counted her wing feathers over and over. However, she didn’t. She took those grasses.

Mrs. Blackbird missed them, and then saw them woven loosely into the nest below hers. She did not say much, and she did not eat the eggs out of the Sparrows’ nest. Some people said that she ate them, but that was a mistake. All that she did was to sit very quietly on her nest while a Red Squirrel ate them. When this same fellow would have eaten those in the nest below, both the Hairbirds being away, she drove him off herself.

You can imagine what the Sparrows said when they returned. Or perhaps you might better not try to, for they said very cross things. Then Mrs. Blackbird told what she thought about those stolen grasses, and her husband joined in, until there was more noise than a flock of Crows would make.

A RED SQUIRREL ATE THEM.

It ended in Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow tearing down that nest and building another in the woodbine, where most of their relatives lived. Some of their neighbors thought the Blackbirds right and some thought the Sparrows right, but through it all Mr. and Mrs. Hairbird were happy and contented, and brought up their four charming children to be as good birds as they were themselves.

The Sparrows often said that the worst thing about going away from the family tree was leaving the Hairbirds, who were such delightful neighbors. The Blackbirds said that the pleasantest thing about the tree was having the Hairbirds for neighbors. The Hairbirds were liked by everybody, and never made trouble between friends. It was all because they knew how and when to keep their bills shut.

THE INDUSTRIOUS FLICKERS

IF the Bad Boy who lived in the next block had known more about the habits of Flickers, there would probably have been no young ones to feed on the lawn of the big house. He had watched Mr. and Mrs. Flicker in the spring when they were making their nest ready, and had waited only long enough for the eggs to be laid before climbing the tall Lombardy poplar to rob it.

You must not think that Mr. and Mrs. Flicker were stupid in showing the Bad Boy where their nest was. There was never a more careful couple, but they were so large and handsome that, if they went anywhere at all, they were sure to be seen. After they had once been seen, it was easy for any one with plenty of time to watch and follow them home.

Mr. Flicker was clad mostly in golden brown, barred with black. He had a very showy black spot on his breast, which was just the shape of a new moon, black patches on his cheeks and smaller ones on his belly. The linings of his wings, and the quills of his long wing- and tail-feathers were a bright yellow, and on the back of his head he had a beautiful red band. All these were very fine, but the most surprising thing was a large patch of pure white feathers on the lower part of his back. These did not show except when he was flying. At other times his folded wings quite hid them from sight. Mrs. Flicker looked so much like her husband that you could not tell one from the other, unless you were near enough to see their cheeks. Then you would know, for Mrs. Flicker had no black spots on hers.

When the Bad Boy was sure that the nest was high up in the trunk of the old Lombardy poplar, just across the street from the big house, he waited until his mother and his big sister were out of the way, and then he climbed that tree and took the six white eggs out of it. That was a very, very cruel thing to do. It would have been bad enough to take one, but to take all six was a great deal worse. You will not pity the Bad Boy when you know that he tore his trousers and hurt one hand on his way down.

Poor Mrs. Flicker cried herself to sleep that night. “If we had not been careful,” she sobbed, “I wouldn’t feel so badly, but to have it happen after all the trouble we took! I am sure that when we cut the hole for our nest, not a single chip fell to the ground below. We carried them all far away before dropping them.

“Excepting the ones we left for the eggs to lie on,” added Mr. Flicker, who was always particular and exact in what he said, even when in great trouble.

A VERY CRUEL THING TO DO.

“Yes, excepting those,” sobbed his poor wife. “I left a few of the best ones inside.”

“I wonder where the eggs are now,” said Mr. Flicker. He looked toward the Bad Boy’s home as he spoke. If he had but known it, the Bad Boy had not one left. Two had been broken in coming down the tree (for his mouth had not been big enough to carry all six), three he had traded for marbles, and the last one, which he meant to keep for a “specimen,” had rolled off his desk in school and smashed on the floor. The Bad Boy had been kept in at recess for this, but that did not make the egg whole again.

The Flickers went sadly to sleep, and dreamed of a land where Birds were as big as Cows and Boys as small as Goldfinches—where boys were afraid of birds and hid when they saw them coming.

When the morning sunshine awakened them and they had breakfasted well, Mrs. Flicker began to feel more hopeful. “I am really ashamed of myself,” she said, “for being so discouraged. There would be some excuse for it if I were another kind of bird, but since I am a Flicker and can lay more eggs whenever my nest is robbed, I think I’d better stop crying and plan for six more.”

“My brave wife!” exclaimed Mr. Flicker. “You are quite right. It is all very sad, but we will make the best of it and try to be happy.”

The Bad Boy passed under the tree more than twenty times before the second lot of eggs were hatched, and he wished and wished for a Flicker’s egg (only he called them High Holes, because they built in high holes). He never guessed that in the nest above his head lay six more just as fine as the ones he had stolen. It is not strange that he did not, for who but a Flicker can lay and lay and lay eggs when her nest is robbed?

Now the young Flickers were hatched and ready to leave their comfortable home. They were much more helpless than most young birds are when they leave the nest. In fact, they could hardly fly at all, and had to tumble and sprawl their way to the ground, catching here and there in the branches of the poplar. Her neighbors thought Mrs. Flicker quite heartless to let them go so soon, but when she told them what a care her six nestlings were, they felt differently about it.

“Did you ever hear of such a thing?” exclaimed Mrs. Catbird, who thought herself quite overworked in caring for her six, and who had only known Flickers by sight before this. “Did you ever hear of such a thing? She tells me that she and Mr. Flicker not only have to find all the food for their children, but have to eat it for them also. I remember the Mourning Doves doing that, but then, they never have more than two children at a time, so it is not so hard.”

“What is that?” asked a Blackbird, who, like the rest of her family, always wanted to know about everything.

“Why,” repeated Mrs. Catbird, “the Flickers have to eat all the food they get for their children, and then, when it has become soft and ready for young birds, they unswallow it into their children’s bills. It takes so much time to do this and to fly back and forth that they want to have them out of the nest as soon as possible. Then they can take them around with them.”

You can imagine how anxious the parents were for a few days, while their six babies were still so awkward and helpless. They took them across the street to the lawn around the big house, and tucked them away in dusky places where their brown feathers would not show against anything light. Most of them were under the edge of a board walk, one was under a porch, and one was under a low branching evergreen. Mrs. Robin, who was then hatching her second brood, kept watch for Silvertip, and this was a great help to the Flickers on the ground below.

First one and then another of the young Flickers went out with one of the parents, and it was most interesting to see them fed. The Flickers, you know, are woodpeckers, and their long bills are slender, curved, and pointed, just right for picking Grubs and nice fat little Bugs out of tree-bark. Their tails, also, are stiff and right to prop them as they work up and around the trunk of a tree. Still, they feed on the ground more than on trees, and like Ants better than anything else in the world.

Now, one could see Mr. Flicker by an Ant-hill with a nestling beside him, his head going up and down like a hammer, and an Ant picked up in his bill at every stroke. Every now and then he would stop, turn his head, place his bill in that of his child, and unswallow some Ants, which the nestling would gulp down. Between feedings the nestling would settle his head between his shoulders, and slide his thin eyelids over his eyes. He never slid his thick eyelids over. He saved those for night, when he would really sleep.

While the father was feeding one, the mother would be feeding another. When these two were satisfied they were sent back to their hiding-places and two more had their turns. It was very hard work, in spite of their being so good. They never fussed or teased. They waited patiently for their turns and found no fault with the food.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Flicker to her husband, as she swallowed the six hundred-and-forty-eighth Ant since sunrise. “I am so tired that I feel like giving up. If it were not for you and the children, I believe I would just as soon let that Cat catch me as not.”

“I know,” he answered. “I am very tired myself, and I am sure you must be more so. You do not seem strong since you were shut in so long while brooding the eggs.”

“It is easier in one way, now that all are out of the nest,” said she. “It saves my wings a great deal, but my neck and throat ache from such steady work. I used to rather enjoy eating for myself. The food tasted good, and it was something pleasant to do. This eating for a whole family is quite different.”

“Well, it won’t last much longer,” her husband said comfortingly. “The children will soon be able to feed themselves, and you can have a good rest. Then we will go picnicking in the fields beyond this place, and every one shall get his own lunch.”

In a few more days they did this, and for three mornings they might have been seen, in a happy party of eight, walking around together, quite as Pigeons do. At the end of the third day, Mr. Flicker said to his wife: “Well, my dear, are you having a good time? This is a pleasant change from caring for the children, isn’t it?”

To his surprise, she turned her head away and did not answer. When he repeated his questions, she replied with a little choke in her voice. “It is very easy,” she said, “and a great rest, but it seems to me I have nothing to do. I eat all I can and try to swallow slowly, but when my stomach is full I have to just walk around. I miss the children putting their dear little bills up to mine and taking food from me. I believe I am lonely.”

Poor Mr. Flicker was young and inexperienced. He did not know how quickly some people change their minds, or how mothers miss the care of children.

“Isn’t there something you can do,” he asked, “to make you happier?”

“Could you help me clean out our old hole in the Lombardy poplar?” said she. “I believe I will lay some more eggs.”

“What?” cried her husband. “When you have been so tired? And then you will be shut in so long while brooding them. Why not fly off on a pleasure trip with me?”

“I will,” said she. “I’d love to go. But let us get the nest all ready first.”

Mr. Flicker was young and inexperienced, as has been said before, yet he flew right off to work on that nest and let his wife do exactly as she chose. Which shows that, although she did change her mind and he could not understand why, they were a very happy and sensible couple, after all.

PLUCKY MRS. POLISTES

MRS. POLISTES was a charming little widow, who had slept through the long, cold winter, snugly tucked away in a crack in the barn belonging to the big house. She had married late in the fall, but her husband was a lazy fellow who had soon left her, and sat around in the sunshine with his brothers and the other fellows whom he knew. Each sat in his own little spot, and at last died because he was so lazy. That is the way with many insects who will not work. They die, and the members of their families who keep busy live to a good old age.

Now it was spring, and Mrs. Polistes awakened happy and full of plans. You must not think her hard-hearted to be happy after her husband was dead. If he had been a different sort of a fellow, you know, she would have missed him more. As it was, she did not even think of marrying again, but set to work to build her home and bring up her children to be good and industrious Wasps like herself.

She asked another young widow to work with her, and together they flew around hunting for a good building-place. They talked first of hanging their nest from the branch of a bush, but both were very careful Wasps and preferred to be sheltered from rain-storms. (Some of their family, however, did choose to build on bushes). Next they flew into the ice-house and tried several of the corners there. Mrs. Polistes did most of the talking, being a Wasp of very decided opinions.

“It is too chilly here,” she said. “I should never feel like myself in such a cold place. And you know perfectly well,” she added, “that if anybody should disturb us in here, we would not be warm enough to sting. Or if we did sting, we could never pump much poison in.”

There was nothing to be said after that, for everybody knows that unless a Wasp can sting, and sting hard, he is not safe.

Then they looked at the porch ceilings. Their cousins, the Vespæ, had started some nests there, and they preferred not to be too near them. The Vespæ were very good Wasps, but, as Mrs. Polistes said, “We wish to bring our children up to be Polistes Wasps, and if they see the way in which the Vespæ live, they will get their ideas all mixed. I do not think it wise to rear them within sight of covered nests, and you know as well as I [this was to her friend] how the Vespæ wall around their cells.”

After this they found what they thought a most delightful place. It was just inside the closed shutters of a bedroom window. The upper sash of the window was lowered, and inside of that was a fine wire netting. “Excellent!” said the friend. “That is probably there to keep the people inside from coming out this way.”

Mrs. Polistes was not quite sure that the netting was there for that reason, but she liked the place, so they flew off together to the stump-fence which enclosed the great field back of the house. Then they looked for an old stump, sat down on one of its prongs, and began to gnaw off wood fibre. They did not talk much, for they had to work so hard with their mouths. Each gnawed length-wise of the grain until she had a little bundle of wood fibre in her jaws. When these were ready, they flew off to their chosen spot and began to build. First it had to be chewed for a long time, until it was soft and pulpy, then, working together and very carefully, they built a slender, stemlike thing down from the top of the window casing.

It took many trips to bring enough wood fibre for this, and between trips they had to stop for food. It took longer to find it so early in the season than it would later, for Flies and insects of all kinds were scarce and there were not many flowers yet. Some of those which looked most tempting were for Bees, and not for Wasps. The Wasps, you know, have such short tongues that they cannot get the honey from most flowers. That is why they so like the flat-topped ones and the shallow ones into which they can reach easily. Mrs. Polistes and her friend at last found a bed of sweet clover which made them fine meals.

That first day they only chose the place for their home and got the stem ready, but it was not long before they had three tiny cells begun and eggs in two of them. Mrs. Polistes and the homemakers of her family always insisted upon doing in this way.

“It not only saves time,” said Mrs. Polistes, “to have several kinds of work going at once, but it rests one, too. When my jaws are tired of chewing wood fibre or shaping it into cells, I rest myself by laying an egg. And when my sting is tired from that, I hunt food for myself and the babies. There is nothing like having a change of work.”

Mrs. Polistes spoke in this way about her sting, you understand, because it was her ovipositor, or egg-layer, as well. She really used it in this way much more than the other. She did not wish to sting with it any more than she had to. It tired her very much to pump poison through it when she stung. There was always the danger, too, if she stung a large creature, like a boy, of getting it stuck in him and not being able to pull it out without breaking. If it broke, she would die.

Mrs. Polistes and her friends took turns in laying eggs, and soon had to begin another row of cells around the first. They laid their oblong white eggs in them long before the cells were done, and had to stick them up to the side walls to keep them from falling out of the opening at the bottom. Then, when they had time, they lowered the walls of the cells. When the babies hatched, which was only a few days after the laying of the eggs, they brought food and fed them as they hung in their cells.

The Lady who lived in the big house watched this very often, and Mrs. Polistes and her friend became so used to it that they were not at all frightened or disturbed. Wasps, you know, are very easily tamed by any one who moves gently. The Lady stood on a chair just inside the window, and put her face close to the screen. She could see exactly how the mother Wasps bit the cell walls into shape, moving backward all the time. She could see Mrs. Polistes and her friend bring nicely chewed-up Flies and other insects with which to feed the babies, and watched them go quietly from cell to cell, giving a lunch to each.

They were very interesting babies. Being still fastened to the cell wall by the tail end, only their heads showed, tiny white heads with two little eyes and brown, horny jaws. Sometimes, when Mrs. Polistes and her friend were away, the Lady would softly lower the screen from the top of the window and touch the nest very, very gently with her pencil. Then each baby thought it was his mother or his aunt, and thrust his tiny head out for food. Perhaps this was not kind to the Wasp babies, but if the Lady made them and their mother amuse her, she was also very careful about worrying them. The older Wasps never found out that the screen had been moved, and the Lady told everybody in the house that the upper window sash must not be put up. She feared that it would strike the outer cells and loosen the nest if raised.

All would have gone well if it had not been for that dreadful thunderstorm just before daylight one morning. The Gentleman found the raindrops blowing in through the bedroom window, and got it almost closed before he remembered the Wasps’ nest. Then he lowered the upper sash again and left it down, in spite of the rain.

Sad to say, when morning came the dainty little nest lay on the top edge of the upper sash. It had been loosened but not crushed, and had fallen on to the only place it could. Mrs. Polistes and her friend were flying in and out with food for the babies, who were now all tilted up sidewise, instead of hanging head downward, as Wasp babies should.

“I don’t understand it at all,” said the friend. “Everything is exactly as it was when we went to sleep, except that the nest has fallen.”

“I was dreaming as I hung on the nest last night,” replied Mrs. Polistes, “when suddenly I felt a great jar and was knocked off.”

“So was I,” exclaimed her friend.

“I flew around in the dark until I found it again,” added Mrs. Polistes, “but I had to wait until daylight to see what had happened. Oh, dear! It is so upsetting to find one’s home upside down, and two of my children are just ready to spin their cocoons.”

“Your children?” asked her friends quite sharply, for it made her cross to have such misfortunes. “Your children? One of those children is mine.”

“Which one?” asked Mrs. Polistes, who thought she remembered her own egg-laying.

“I don’t know which, now that the nest is all turned around,” was the answer. “It has mixed those babies up, and I can’t pick out mine.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” said Mrs. Polistes kindly. “You may call them both yours, if you want to. Just laying the egg doesn’t count for much, and we have both fed and cared for them. I supposed we would share babies as we have shared everything else.”

This made the friend ashamed of herself, and she said that she was sorry she was cross, and that Mrs. Polistes should call one of the cocoons hers.

Then they put their heads together to decide what to do with the nest. When Wasps put their heads together, they stroke each other with their long feelers, or antennæ, and in that way each is sure what the other is thinking. They also smell with these feelers, you know, and some people say that they hear with them. A Wasp with broken antennæ can do but little, and as for not having any—why, a Wasp might as well die at once as to lose his antennæ.

Poor Mrs. Polistes and her little friend! It looked now as though if they were to bring up those children at all, they would have to do it wrong side up. The right way, you know, is to raise them upside down, and here they were lying with their heads up in cells that were open at the top.

Yet, even while they were thinking about it, something else happened. The window sash on which the nest lay began to move slowly and steadily upward, not stopping until the nest almost touched the casing above.

Mrs. Polistes was so frightened! She thought that nest, children, and all were about to be crushed flat. She said afterward that she was so scared she could think of nothing but stinging, and there was nobody whom she could sting. Of course, that would be so, for a Wasp who is frightened always wants to sting, and it is a great comfort to him if he can. It gives him something new to think about, you know.

The Lady was the one who slowly pushed the sash upward. She thought it might help the poor little mothers somewhat. And it did. They began at once to hunt food for their children and bring it in. The nest now lay on the middle of the sash. Before it was knocked loose, it had hung over in one corner of the casing. It would now have been much nearer for the little mothers to crawl through the middle of the shutters. But they were Wasps, and Wasps do not easily change their paths, so they entered each time at precisely the old place, and then flew or crawled to the nest. One who watches Wasps in the open air would never expect them to go by a roundabout way, for they fly so swiftly, strongly, and directly, yet they are easily puzzled by changes around the nest.

Mrs. Polistes had not fed more than half her share of children when she had an idea. She struck her antennæ against those of her friend and told her about it. Then they walked all around the nest, looked at it, felt of it, and gave it little pushes. The Lady stood on her chair watching them, but they were used to her and did not mind it.

“I believe we can,” said Mrs. Polistes.

“It would be lovely if we could,” answered her friend, “but I am sure we can’t.”

“We can try it, anyway,” said Mrs. Polistes.

“What is the use?” said her friend. “It will just scare the babies and tire us out. We might better feed them where they are.”

“No,” said Mrs. Polistes, and she spoke very positively. “No! There are worse things than being scared, and they must stand it. If we leave this nest as it is, the first hard wind will tumble it around, and a rolling nest raises no Wasps.”

“Mothers!” cried the children, in their weak little voices. “Mothers! What are you talking about?”

“We are going to fix your nest up again,” answered Mrs. Polistes. “Now be good children, and do not bother us with questions.”

Then she and her friend began pushing and pulling and rolling and tumbling the nest around to get it more nearly right side up. They got it tipped so that all the cells slanted downward, and then they began chewing wood-pulp and building a new stem toward it from the casing above. Mrs. Polistes worked so hard that her friend was really worried about her. She would not take time to eat. At last her friend stood right in front of her and unswallowed a drop of delicious honey. “You must eat it,” she said. “When I swallowed it, I meant to keep it for myself, but I would much rather give it to you.” Mrs. Polistes lapped it up and felt stronger at once.

Such a stout stem as this one was! The cell walls also had to be strengthened with more of the wood pulp and sticky saliva from the Wasps’ mouths, because the stem was to be fastened to them in a new place. It was not until the next day that all this work was done, and the mothers could begin living in the old way again. The babies were glad when this time came, for they had not been fed so much while extra building had to be done.

The two children who were ready to do so had spun their cocoons in their cells. They used the silky stuff which they had in their mouths, and which oozed out through a little hole in each child’s lip. The others were growing finely, the nest was hanging from its new stem, the Lady had lowered the window sash once more, and Mrs. Polistes and her friend had a little time to rest. “I am going to give myself a thorough cleaning,” said she, licking her front feet off and then rubbing her head with them. “And then I am going away for a playspell.”

She cleaned herself all over with her legs, and was most particular about her antennæ. She had special cleaners for these, you know—little prongs which grow in the bend of the fourth and fifth joints of the forelegs and fit closely around the antennæ, scraping them clean between the bent legs and the prongs. You can see she would need to be particular, because she had to do her talking, her smelling, part of her feeling, and perhaps some of her hearing with them. When she was well scrubbed, she took a good look at the children and flew off for a fine time, while her friend took care of things at home.

Such fun as she had! She caught and ate Cabbage Butterflies, Earwigs, and other food which will not be touched by most insects and birds. She supped a tiny bit of honey from the sweet clover, and then flew straight to the cherry tree. A Catbird was already there, helping himself to the best in the tree-top, and laughing at the Lady when she tried to scare him away. He was never afraid of her throwing straight enough to hit him.

Mrs. Polistes sipped juice from one ripe cherry after another, and then, sad to say, she began to drink from one which was over-ripe. She may not have known that it was so, but not knowing made no difference with her feelings. She was soon so weak in all her six legs that she could not walk, and so weak in her wings that her big front and her small hind pairs would not stay hooked together as they should be. It was a long time before she could get home.

When she did go, she carried back some good things for the children, and then took care of them while her friend had a playspell. After all, when she was once rested, she enjoyed work better than play. Her children all grew finely, and so did those of her friend, which was exceedingly fortunate. If one had died, you know, after the tumbling down of the nest, each would have thought it her own.

The little Wasps also grew up as well as could be expected. The sons all took after their father, and were lazy, but, apart from that, they were all right. The Queen daughters were exactly like their mothers, and the little Workers, of whom there were the most of all, were the greatest of comforts. They did the work of the home as soon as they were old enough. It was truly a family which paid for saving.

When people asked Mrs. Polistes how she ever came to think of such a thing as putting the nest up again, she simply flirted her wings and replied: “Where else should I put it? I couldn’t leave my children there.”

SILVERTIP STOPS A QUARREL

THIS is the story of something which did not really happen in the dooryard of the big house, yet it has seemed best to put it in with these tales because it could all be seen from that yard, and because Silvertip had a part in it.

He was sitting quietly upon the broad top-rail of the fence one afternoon, wishing that the sun would shine again. It had rained most of the time for three days, and he did not like wet weather. He thought it was going to clear off, for the clouds had not sent any drops down since noon. The grass and walks were still damp, so he sat on the fence-rail. He had stayed in the house so long that he was tired of it, and he was also watching a pair of Robins who had built a nest on one of the up-stairs window-ledges. They had put it right on top of a last year’s Robins’ nest, and that was on one of the year before. You can see that it was well worth looking at.

Silvertip had been here only a short time, when he saw Mr. White Cat, from another house, walking over to the one across the street. Miss Tabby Cat lived there, and he knew that Mr. Tiger Cat was around somewhere. Mr. White Cat looked very cross. He was one of those people who are good-natured only when the sun is shining and they have everything they want, and this, you know, is not the best sort of a person.

“Um-hum!” said Silvertip to himself. “I think there will be a fight before long. I will watch.” He stood up and stretched himself carefully and sat down the other way, so as to see all that happened. Silvertip himself never fought. He spent a great deal of time in making believe fight, and usually entertained his Cat callers by glaring, spitting, or even growling at them, but he never really clawed and scratched and bit. He did not care to have sore places all over him, and he did not wish to get his ears chewed off.

“I can get what I want without fighting for it, so why should I fight?” said he. He was a very good sort of Cat, and had never been really cross about anything except when the Little Boy came to live in the big house. Then he had been sulky for weeks, and would not stay in the room with the Little Boy at all. He thought that if he made enough fuss about it, the Gentleman and the Lady would not let the Little Boy live there. When he found the Little Boy would stay anyway, he stopped being cross. After a while he loved him too.

No, Silvertip would not fight. But he very much liked to watch other Cats fight. Now he saw Miss Tabby sit quietly by the house across the street and right in front of a hole under the porch. She had her legs tucked beneath her, and her tail neatly folded around them. She looked as though she had found a small spot which was dry, and wanted to get all of herself on that.

Just inside the open doorway of the barn, there sat Mr. Tiger Cat. He also had his legs tucked in and his tail folded around him. Mr. White Cat walked straight up to him and stood stiff-legged. Mr. Tiger Cat, who had just eaten a hearty meal and wanted an after-dinner nap, half opened his eyes and looked at him. Then he closed them again.

This made Mr. White Cat more ill natured still. He did not like to have people look at him and then shut their eyes. He began to switch his tail and stand his hair on end. He decided to make the other Cat fight anyway. He cared all the more about it because Miss Tabby was watching him. He had not noticed Silvertip. “Er-oo!” said he, drawing back his head and lowering his tail stiffly. “Did you say it was going to rain, or did you say it was not?”

“I hardly think it will,” answered Mr. Tiger Cat pleasantly.

“You don’t think it will, hey?” asked Mr. White Cat. “Well, I say it will pour.”

Mr. Tiger Cat slid his thin eyelids over his eyes.

“Did you hear me?” asked Mr. White Cat, still standing in the same way.

“Certainly,” answered the other.

“Well, what do you say to that?” asked Mr. White Cat, and now he began to stand straighter and hold his tail out behind.

“I am willing it should pour,” said Mr. Tiger Cat, beginning to uncover his eyes slowly.

“Oo-oo! You are?” growled Mr. White Cat. “You are, are you? Well, I am not!”

There was no answer. You see Mr. Tiger Cat did not want to fight. He did not need to just then, and he never fought for the fun of it when his stomach was so full. He supposed he would have to in the end, for he knew when a fellow has really made up his mind to it, and is picking a quarrel, it has to end in that way. At least, it has to end in that way when one is a Cat. If one is bigger and better, there are other ways of ending it.

Mr. Tiger Cat knew all this, and yet he waited. “The longer I wait,” he thought, “the more I shall feel like it. My stomach will not be so full and I can fight better. He needn’t think he can come around and pick a quarrel and chew my ears when Miss Tabby is looking on. No indeed.”

You see Mr. Tiger Cat was also fond of Miss Tabby.

“Er-roo!” said Mr. White Cat, straightening his legs until he stood very tall indeed. “Er-roo!”

He had made himself so angry now that he could not talk in words at all. Mr. Tiger Cat sat still.

“Er-row!” said Mr. White Cat, speaking way down his throat. “Er-row!” Mr. Tiger Cat sat still.

Silvertip became so excited that he could not stay longer on the fence. He dearly loved to see a good fight, you know, so he jumped quietly down without looking away from the barn door, and began walking softly toward it. He knew that when a Cat got to saying “Er-row!” down in his throat, something was going to happen very soon. Silvertip did not know, however, exactly what it would be because he did not see a couple of big Dogs trotting down the street toward him.

He crept nearer and nearer to the barn, hardly looking where he stepped for fear of missing some of the fun. His pretty white paws got wet and dirty, but that did not matter now. Paws could be licked clean at any time. Fights must be watched while they may be found.

“Ra-ow!” said Mr. White Cat, giving a forward jump.

“Pht!” answered Mr. Tiger Cat, standing stiffly on his hind feet and letting his front ones hang straight down. He was wide awake now, and ready to teach Mr. White Cat a lesson in politeness.

“Bow-wow!” said the Dogs just behind Silvertip. He might have run up a tree near by, but he had a bright idea.

“I’ll do it,” he exclaimed. “The Little Boy says it is wicked to fight, anyway.” Then he ran straight in through that open door and jumped to a high shelf in the barn. He saw Miss Tabby turn a summersault backward and crawl under the porch.

Mr. Tiger Cat took a long jump to the sill of a high window. Mr. White Cat did not seem to care at all whether it was going to pour or not. He sprang to the top round of a ladder. The Dogs frisked below, wagging their tails and talking to each other about the Cats.

Mr. Tiger Cat, who was very well-bred and could always think of something polite to say, remarked to Silvertip: “Your call was quite an unexpected pleasure!” He had a smiling look around the mouth as he spoke.

“Yes,” answered Silvertip, who liked a joke as well as anybody, unless it were a joke on himself alone. “Yes, I found myself coming this way, and just ran in.”

Then they both settled down comfortably where they were, tucking their feet under them and wrapping their tails around. Nobody said anything to Mr. White Cat, who had no chance to sit down, and, indeed, could hardly keep from falling off the ladder.

The Dogs frisked and tumbled in the barn for a while and hung around the foot of the ladder. They knew they could not get either of the others, but they had a happy hope that Mr. White Cat might fall.

When at last the Dogs had gone, and Mr. White Cat had also sneaked away, Mr. Tiger Cat said: “Fighting is very wrong.”

“Yes,” replied Silvertip, “very wrong indeed. But,” he added, “I’ll make believe fight anybody.” So he jumped stiffly down and Mr. Tiger Cat jumped stiffly down, and they glared and growled at each other all the afternoon and never bit or even unsheathed a claw. They had a most delightful time, and Miss Tabby came out from under the porch and smiled on them both. She loved Cats who acted bravely.

A YOUNG SWIFT TUMBLES

IN one of the chimneys of the big house several families of Chimney Swifts had built their homes. They had come north in April and flown straight to this particular place. It was the family home of this branch of the Swifts, and every year since great-grandfather Swift discovered it, some of his children and grandchildren had come back there to build. They were quite airy, and thought a great deal about appearances. “Swifts are sure to be judged by the chimney in which they live,” they said, “and there is no use in choosing a poor one when there are good ones to be found.”

Nobody would have dared remind these Chimney Swifts that their great-great-great-great-grandparents lived in hollow trees, if indeed any of their friends knew it. They themselves never spoke of the Swifts who still do so, and since they had always lived in a land of chimneys, they did not dream of the times when there were none to be found. Of course, before the white men came to this country Swifts had to build in hollow trees.

THE CHIMNEY-SWIFT’S HOME.

You can just imagine what a happy, busy place this chimney was in the springtime, when last year’s nests were being torn down and new ones were building. The older Swifts were there and those who were to keep house for the first time. Then, of course, the younger ones had married and brought new wives there, and they had to be introduced and shown all over the chimney.

Some wanted to build nearer the top than others, and the older ones were always advising the younger ones. It was so hard for a Swift mother to remember that her married son was old enough to decide things for himself; and many such mothers fluttered around the sons’ nests, telling them how to place each twig, and giving the new wives advice as to how to bring up the babies who would soon come to live with them.

This story is about a young couple who built the lowest nest of all. They were dressed just alike in sleek, sooty, brown feathers, which were of a lighter shade on their throats. Their necks and heads were very broad, their bills short but able to open very wide; their wings were longer than their tails, and the quills of their tail feathers stuck out stiff and bare far beyond the soft, feathery part. The Swifts are all very proud of these bare quills. “There are not many birds,” they say, “who can show their quills in that fashion.”

These quills are very useful, too, for after a Swift has broken off a tiny twig for his nest, he has to cling to the side of the chimney and fix it into place, and he could not do this without supporting himself by these tail quills. It is hard work building nests, and you can see that it would be. They have to cling with both feet, support themselves with their tails, put each tiny twig in place with their bills, and glue it there with sticky saliva from their mouths or else with tree-gum.

The young husband who was building his first home low down in the chimney was a sturdy and rather wilful fellow, who was very sure what he wanted, and just as sure that he was going to get it. When he said, “I shall do this,” or, “I am going to have that,” other people had learned to keep still. They sometimes had a smiling look around the bill, but they said nothing. His wife was a sweet and sensible Swift who never made a fuss about anything, or bragged of what she meant to do. Still, other Swifts who watched them said that she had her way quite as often as he had his.

It was really she who had chosen to build well down in the chimney. Her husband had preferred to be near the top, and she had agreed to that, but spoke of what would happen if one of their children should fall out of the nest.

“There is no need of one falling out,” said Mr. Swift. “Tell them to lie still and not push around. Then they will not fall out.”

Mrs. Swift fixed one of the feathers on the under side of her left wing, and then remarked: “And you do not think it would disturb you to have our neighbors passing all the time.”

“Yes, I do,” he replied. “I have thought so from the first, and I am thinking that it might be well to build lower for that reason. Then we could be passing the others instead.”

He flew down and pecked at the bricks in a few places to make sure that he could fasten a nest securely. Then he came back to his wife. “I have decided to build the lowest nest of all,” said he, “but you understand it is not on account of the children. There is no sense in their moving around in the nest.”

“I understand,” said Mrs. Swift, and he flew away for twigs while she stayed behind to visit with her mother-in-law.

The mother-in-law’s eyes twinkled. “I believe my son said that his children were not to move around in the nest,” she said with a laugh. “I wonder how he is going to stop their doing so.”

“Tell them, I suppose,” answered young Mrs. Swift, smilingly. “Did he push around at all when he was a baby?”

“He?” replied the older Swift. “He was the most restless child I ever hatched. He will know more about bringing up children after he has raised a brood or two. Don’t worry, my dear. It will come out all right.” She flew off and the young wife went for twigs also, and thought how happy she ought to be in having such a mother-in-law.

When the lowest nest was built and the four long pure white eggs were laid in it, Mr. and Mrs. Swift were a very proud young couple. The nest was so thin that one could see the eggs through it quite plainly, but it was exceedingly stout and firm. It was not a soft nest, and it had no real lining, although Mrs. Swift had laid in one especially perfect grass blade “to give it style.”

That grass blade may be seen to this day by any one who cares to look at the nest as it lies in a cabinet in the house. It was the only nest in the chimney which had anything but twigs in it, and some people wondered at Mrs. Swift’s taste. One stout elderly mother Swift said “she supposed it was all right, but that she had never done such a thing and her children had turned out all right.” However, young Mrs. Swift smiled in her pretty way and did not talk back.

When they were planning for the four children whom they expected, Mrs. Swift spoke of how patient they would have to be with them, but Mr. Swift said: “They must be brought up to mind! If I tell a child once to do a thing, that is enough. You will see how I bring them up.” Then he ruffled up his feathers, puffed out his throat, and looked very important.

They did most of their visiting in the beautiful night-time, for it is a custom among their people to fly and hunt and visit in the dark, and rest by day. Their busiest time is always just before the sun comes up, and so it happened that the Little Boy who slept in the room below did not often hear the rumbling noise in the chimney as they flew in and out. When they were awakened he slept quietly in his snug little bed, and as he was awakening, and stretching, and getting his dimples ready for the day, the Swifts were going to sleep after a busy night.

When the baby Swifts broke their shells and were seen for the first time by their loving father and mother, Mr. Swift was surprised to find how small they were. Mrs. Swift murmured sweet words to them and worked as hard as her husband to find them food. There were now so many mouths to be fed that they flew by day as well as by night, and often the Little Boy in the room below thought he heard distant thunder when it was only the Swifts coming down the chimney with food for their babies. All sorts of tiny winged creatures were brought them to eat, for Swifts catch all their food as they fly, and that means that they can feed upon only such creatures as also fly.

When they were stretching up to reach the food, Mrs. Swift would say to the children: “Now learn to move carefully, for if you should get over the edge of the nest you will tumble down into that fireplace of which I have told you.”

When he was feeding them Mr. Swift would say: “You may open your bills, but not one of you must move beyond that twig. Do you understand?”

Three of them obeyed without asking questions, but the eldest brother was always trying to see just how far he could go without tumbling, and he would talk back to his father.

“You don’t care if I put one wing out, do you?” he would ask.