Birds' Eggs

O F course with all their egg and seed hunting the children did not forget the birds.

They had chickens and pigeons to watch, and there were all the wild birds to build nests for them.

A great many birds built in their yards, because the birds seemed to know they would be safe there.

Of course the children often went and looked into the nests where they were low enough so they could. But they were careful about it, and never handled the eggs or the young birds. The old birds seemed to know they had just come to visit, and treated them quite politely.

The catbird that had its nest in the lilac bush, though, was sometimes rather cross, and would fly at them and scream.

"I must reason with that catbird," Kittie said.

So she sat down and reasoned with it, and the children thought it behaved rather better after that. For myself, I have no doubt it did.

"Oh, mommy, mommy, de nest is full of 'ittle kitten-birds!" baby Belle called out, one day. She was getting to be very much of a talker, and was also very much interested in watching the birds and things with the other children.

Sister Kittie ran to look, and sure enough there were three little dots of catbirds.

The man who took care of the garden had lifted baby Belle up so she could see them.

"I wonder what is in it," Jack said that same day, as he held a little box in his hand that the postman had brought. It had his name on it, and he felt proud, I can tell you.

"Why don't you open it?" demanded Ko.

"You go call Kittie and I will," he said.

So Ko got Kittie to come, and then Jack opened the box.

It was from Uncle John, who was then in Florida. He had heard about the boys' interest in looking for eggs, and had sent them—guess what?

A long, white alligator's egg.

"Think of an alligator coming out of a little thing like that!" said Kittie.

"No worse than that old rooster coming out of a little hen's egg," said Ko, firing a chip at the rooster, who merely flapped his wings and crowed in reply.

"But an alligator is as b-i-g as a big man, and ever so much bigger," Kittie objected.

"Not when it is hatched," persisted Ko.

"No, and then it's all so queer about eggs, anyway," admitted Kittie; "they do hatch out such queer things."

"I wonder if angle worms come out of eggs, too," Jack said, as a robin hopped across the path with a fine fat angle worm in his bill.

"No doubt of it," said Ko. And to be sure there was no doubt of it, he went and asked his father, who told him some very interesting things about angle worms' eggs.

But I am not going to tell you what it was, for there are a few things I should like to leave for you to find out for yourselves.

Only this I will say,—if you look in the right place, at the right time, you no doubt will be able to find any quantity of angle worms' eggs.

And you can watch them hatch out, too, if you know how to go about it.

Perhaps the angle worms will tell you how that is. But I am not going to.

"I have told you enough," as the bean said to Jack.

And like Jack, I hope you will say, "Well, I guess I can find out some more for myself."

For so you can. If you keep your eyes open and look at things, there is no end to what you will find.

The more you look, the more you will want to,—that's the best of it.

Anybody can make beans and other things talk, and I think it is rather a shame for people not to know about beans.

Don't you?