Chapter II: Part 2

“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.

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.

“Not one wing!” his father would answer.

“Why?” the son would ask. “I wouldn’t tumble just because I put one wing out.”

“It is not minding me,” his father would say, “to see how far you can go without tumbling. I did not tell you only to keep from falling out. I told you to keep inside that twig.”

Then the son would pout his bill and act very sulky, getting close to the twig which he had been told not to pass. When he thought his father was not looking, he would even wriggle a little beyond it. Mrs. Swift was worried, but what could she do? She noticed that her husband did not talk so much as he used to about making a child mind the very first time he is spoken to.

One night when the Swifts had fed their children faithfully, this son was unusually naughty. It may be that he had eaten more than his share or that he had picked for the biggest insect every time that lunch was brought. It may be, too, that he was naughty simply because he wanted to be. It does not always mean that a child is ill when he is naughty. His father had just told him to be more careful, and he made a face (yes, he did) and flopped aside to show what he could do without falling.

Then he felt a tiny twig on the edge of the nest break beneath him, and he went tumbling, bumping, and scraping down into the fireplace below. He could not fly up, for his wings were not strong enough to carry him up such a narrow space, and his parents could not get him. He heard his brother and sisters crying and his mother saying that she had always expected that to happen.

“Horrid old twig!” he said. “Don’t see why it had to break! Should think they might build their nest stronger. I don’t care! I was sick of being told not to wriggle, anyway!”

Then he fluttered and sprawled through a crack beside the screen of the grate until he was out in the room. The Little Boy lay asleep in the bed, and that frightened the young Swift. When they tried to scare each other the children had always pretended that a Boy was after them. He crawled behind a picture which leaned against the wall, and stayed there and thought about his dear, dear home up in the chimney.

The Little Boy stirred and awakened and called out: “Mother! Mother! There is somefing making a scratching noise in my room. I fink it is a Bear.”

The young Swift sat very still while the Lady came in and hunted for the Bear. She never came near his hiding-place, and laughed at the Little Boy for thinking of Bears. She told him that the only Bears around their town were two-legged ones, and when he asked her what that meant she laughed again.

He peeped out from behind the picture and saw the Little Boy dress himself. He heard him say: “I can’t poss’bly get vese shoes on, but I’ll try and try and try.” He thought how much pleasanter it was to be a Swift and have all his clothes grow on, and to go barefoot all the year.

He heard the Lady say: “Why, you precious Boy! You did get your shoes on, after all.” Then he saw them go off to breakfast, racing to see who would beat.

After they were gone, he fluttered out to the window, and there the Lady found him, and the Little Boy danced around and wanted to touch him, but didn’t quite dare. The Lady said: “I think this must have been your Bear,” and the Little Boy said: “My teeny-weeny little bitty Bear wiv feavers on.” He heard the Little Boy ask, too, why the bird had so many pins sticking out of his tail, and this made him cross. He did not understand what pins were, but he felt that anybody ought to know about tail-quills.

He didn’t know much about Boys, for this was the first one he had ever seen, and he wondered what those shiny white things were in his mouth. He had never seen teeth and he could not understand. He wondered how the Boy got along without a bill, and pitied him very much. This Little Boy did not seem so very terrible. He even acted a bit afraid of the Swift.

Next the young Swift felt himself lifted gently in the Lady’s hand and laid in a box with soft white stuff in it and two small holes cut in the cover. He was carried from room to room in the house and shown to other people. Once he heard a queer voice say, “Meouw!” and then the Little Boy stamped his foot and said: “Go way, Teddy Silvertip. You can’t have my little bird, you hungry Cat.”

After this the young Swift was more scared than before, and would have given every feather he had to be safely back in the nest in the chimney. He was hungry, too, and he wanted to see his father and his dear mother. He beat his wings against the sides of the box and cried for his mother. “Oh,” he said, “if I were only back in the nest I wouldn’t move. I wouldn’t move a bit.” Then the Cat mewed again and he kept still from fright.

At last he was taken into the open air and placed in the top of a short evergreen, where the Cat could not reach him. Here he clung, weak and lonely and scared, blinking his half-blinded eyes in a light brighter than he had yet seen. All the rest of that day he stayed there, while his father and mother and their other children were sleeping in the home nest. He expected never to see them again, but he did want to tell them how sorry he was.

After the sun had set and the moon was shining, he saw his father darting to and fro above him. “Father!” he cried. “Father, I am so sorry that I moved past the twig. I was very naughty.”

His father heard and flew down to tuck a fat and juicy May Beetle into his mouth. “You poor child!” said he. “Eat that and don’t try to talk. You will not do such things when you are older. I will get you some more food.”

When he returned Mrs. Swift was with him, and they petted and fed the young Swift all night, never scolding him at all, because, as they said, he had been punished quite enough and was sorry. And that was true. His grandmother came also with a bit of food. She told him that they would feed him every night and that he should hide in the branches each day until his feathers were grown.

“In three days more,” said she, “you will be ready to fly, and you look more like your father all the time. In three days more,” she said, “if nobody eats you up.”

You can imagine how anxious the young Swift was during those three days, and how small he tried to be when Silvertip was around. “Surely,” he thought, “the sun and moon were never before so slow in marking off the time.”

When at last he was ready for flight, Silvertip was under the snowball bush near by. The young Swift sprang into the air. “Good-by, my Cat friend,” said he. “You look hungry, but you have lost your best chance at me. You should have been waiting at the grate for me. You might have known that such a foolish young Swift as I would tumble down sooner or later. All that saves some people is not having their foolishness found out!”

THE VERY RUDE YOUNG ROBINS

Why this pair of Robins chose to build so near the Sparrows, nobody knows. It was not at all like Robins to do so, for they are quite careful how they bring up their children. One would expect them to think how likely the little Robins would be to grow up rude and quarrelsome.

However, there their nest was, not the length of a beanpole from those of two pairs of Sparrows. When the nestlings were hatched, they listened all day to what the Sparrows were saying and looked at what they were doing. They heard and saw many things which Mr. and Mrs. Robin did not like. But there was no helping it then, and all that their parents could do was to try to bring them up to be good little birds, and do as they had been told, and not as they had seen naughty children do.

It did make a difference in the behavior of the children, however, and after they left the nest this showed very plainly. When they were old enough to go outside the yard in which they had been hatched, they went to the place next door. There were many fowls on this place, and several Hens in coops with young Chickens around them. The father and mother left the young Robins in safe places while they went to hunt Worms in the newly hoed garden. Two children, a brother and a sister, were half hidden under the drooping branches of a large gooseberry bush.

They had been there for some time, when the sister said, “Just see what lots of good, clean food that Hen and her Chickens have. Don’t you wish you had some of it?”

“Um-hum!” answered the brother. “What a pretty yellow it is. I just know it is good!”

Neither of them spoke again for a long time. Indeed, the brother had begun to settle his head down on his shoulders and slide the thin lids over his eyes, when his sister said, “If you were a Sparrow, you’d get some.”

“Well, I’m not a Sparrow,” he answered, “and so I shall have to go without.”

He was almost cross to his dear little sister, but perhaps one could partly excuse him. He saw that there was much more than the Chickens could eat, and that it would lie there spread out on the board until they had spoiled it all by trampling it with muddy feet. Now it was lovely, clean, sweet corn-meal mush. Besides, he was becoming dreadfully hungry. It was fully ten minutes, you know, since he had been fed anything.

The little sister kept still for a while. Her mother had taught her that it does not always pay to talk too much. At last she asked, “Do you suppose those tiny bits of Chickens know the difference between a Sparrow and a Robin?”

Her brother opened his eyes very wide, and stretched his head up so that one could see the black and white feathers under his bill. He was almost full-grown. “I’ve a good mind to try to fool them,” he said. “You see, the Hen can’t reach the board where the food is.”

“I dare you to!” cried his sister, who really should have been his brother, she was so brave.

“All right,” he answered. “Only you come too.”

“I will,” she said. “But let’s wait until Father and Mother are looking the other way.”

Twice they started out and came back because their parents were looking. At last they made a dash and were by the board.

“Stand aside!” said the brother, talking as nearly like a Sparrow as he could. “Let us have some of this!”

“Who are you?” asked the Chickens, while the old Hen cluck-cluck-clucked and strutted to and fro in the coop. Every little while she stuck her head out as far as she could reach, and her neck feathers spread around in a funny, fat way against the slats of her coop.

“Go away!” she scolded. “Go right away! That is not your mush! You are not my Chickens! Go right home to your mother! Cr-r-r-r-r!” She said this last, you know, because she was getting so angry that she could say nothing else.

The fowls behind the netting of the poultry-yard all came to see what was going on, and chattered about it in their cackling way. “Send them off!” they cried. “Send them off! The idea of their trying to take food from the Chickens!” The Cocks looked particularly big and fierce. Still, there is not much fun in looking big and fierce behind a wire netting, when the people whom you want to scare are in front of it.

The young Robins were dreadfully frightened, but having feathers all over their face, it did not really show. Neither one was willing to be the first to start away, and they didn’t like to speak about it to each other for fear of being overheard. You know, if you can keep other people from finding out that you are scared, you may end by scaring them, and that was exactly what the Robins meant to do.

“Get out of our way!” said they. “Don’t brush against us so again! If you were not young, we wouldn’t have stood it this time. When you have feathers you may know better.”

Then the little Chickens were very badly scared indeed. They backed away as quickly as they could, and crawled in beside their mother. She told them to go back; that the Robins couldn’t hurt them, and that she was ashamed to have them act so Chicken-hearted.

“Let us get under your wings!” they said. “Please let us get under your wings!” And they followed, peeping, after her, as she marched to and fro in the narrow coop. Sometimes they got so near her feet that she almost knocked them over, and at last they quite gave up trying to cuddle down under her, and got together in little groups in the back part of the coop.

“Had enough?” asked the brother at last.

“Yes, indeed,” answered his sister. “I can’t swallow any more now. I’m just making believe because you are not through.”

“All right!” said he.

He turned to the Chickens. “Now you may come,” he said. “But another time get out of our way more quickly.” Then they turned their backs and hopped off. They didn’t want to try flying, because that would show how very young they were.

“We did it,” exclaimed those two naughty children. “Did you ever see such little Geese as those Chickens? But oh, what if our parents should find it out?”

“See here,” chirped their mother, who could not speak very plainly because she had two large Earthworms hanging in wriggling loops from her bill, “Here is a lovely lunch for you.”

“Give it to Brother,” said the little sister. “He always wants more than I.”

“Oh, no. Give it to Sister,” said he. “I don’t mean to be selfish.”

“You shall both have some,” said their mother, tucking a large Worm down each unwilling throat. “Little birds will never be big birds unless they eat plenty of the right kind of food. I will bring you more.”

When she was gone they looked at each other. “I just can _not_ eat another billful,” said the sister.

“And I won’t!” said the brother. After a while he added, “Is there any of that mush sticking to my bill?”

“No,” said the sister. “Is there any on mine?”

They did not feel at all sure that their mother would have let them eat so much mush if she had been asked. They wondered if it would make them sick. They began to think about the stomach-ache, and felt sure that they had one--that is to say, two--one apiece, you know.

Over in the garden, Mrs. Robin said to her husband, “Do you know what those children have done? It was a very ill-bred, Sparrow-like trick. They scared the little Chickens away, and ate all they could of their mush. I am dreadfully ashamed of them, but I shall pretend I did not see it.”

“Make them eat plenty of Worms,” suggested Mr. Robin.

“Just what I am going to do,” answered his wife. “It won’t really hurt them to overeat for once in their lives, and it will punish them very well.”

That was why Mr. and Mrs. Robin worked so especially hard all morning, and made so many trips in under the gooseberry bush. The two young Robins who were there kept insisting that they didn’t need any more, and that they really couldn’t eat another Worm. After they said this, Mrs. Robin always looked sharply at them and asked, “What have you children been doing? Young birds should always want all the Worms their parents can bring them.”

The little Robins were not brave enough to tell what they had done. You know it often takes more courage to confess a fault than it does to scare people. So whenever their mother said this they agreed to eat one more Worm apiece, and choked and gulped it down. It was a dreadful morning for them.

Inside the Chicken-coop the old Hen was trying to settle down again, and the Chickens were talking it over.

“Wasn’t it dreadful?” asked one. “I didn’t know that Robins were so fierce.”

“Mother said that we shouldn’t be afraid of them,” cried another, “but I guess she’d be afraid her own self if she wasn’t in that coop. She’d be ’fraider if she was little, too.”

“I’m glad they didn’t eat it all,” said a third Chicken. “When do you suppose they’ll come again?”

“Every day,” said another, a Chicken who always expected bad things to happen. “Perhaps they will come two times a day! Maybe they’ll even come three!”

But they didn’t. They didn’t come at all. And they never wanted corn-meal mush again.

THE SYSTEMATIC YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO

The people who lived in the big house were much worried about the maple trees which shaded the sidewalk around the place. It was spring now, and they feared another such summer as the last, when the lawn had been covered with fine, healthy, large maple leaves, gnawed off by hungry Caterpillars. One could be sure they were not blown or knocked off, for each stem was neatly eaten through at about the length of a fir needle from the leaf. The lawn did not look well, and the Man who cared for it grumbled and scolded under his breath as he went around raking them up. He could not see that the Caterpillars were of any use in the world. The birds thought differently, but he was a busy Man and not used to thinking of things in that way.

Now spring had come again, and every day the people looked for more leaves on their lawn. They had not found them yet, because the Caterpillars were not old enough to nibble through the stems. Then, one morning while they were eating their breakfast, these people heard a new voice outside. It was not a sweet voice. It sounded somewhat like a thumping on rough boards. It was saying, “Kuk-kuk-kuk!”

Some men who were passing by stopped to look up at the trees, then shook their heads and went on. The Little Boy wanted to leave his breakfast and go out at once to find the new bird, but he had to stay where he was, eat slowly, and fold his napkin before he was allowed to do this. When he went, the Lady and the Gentleman went with him. None of them could see the bird, although they heard his “kuk-kuk-kuk!” in first one tree and then another.

“I am sure that is a Yellow-billed Cuckoo,” said the Lady, “and if it is, he has come for the Caterpillars that are spoiling our trees.”

“Why, Mother?” asked the Little Boy. “How do you know? You didn’t see him.”

“If you had your eyes shut, and I spoke to you,” she replied, “wouldn’t you known whose voice it was?”

The other birds also seemed to know whose voice it was, for they flew around in fright, and scolded and chattered until the visitor had left that row of maples and gone far away. Even then the more timid ones could not settle down to their regular duties. “It has given me such a start,” said one Robin, whose nerves were always easily upset, “that I don’t believe I can weave another grass-blade into my nest to-day.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed a Blackbird. “Eat something and you will feel all right. There is nothing like eating to make one feel better.”

The Robin did as she was told and felt somewhat steadier, yet even then she talked of nothing else that morning. “To think of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo coming here!” she said. “It makes my quills tingle to think of it. My poor babies! My poor babies!”