“Guess it is yours,” said the boy, holding the box in front of him, “for I trapped it out in the road back of here.  I never thought of mocking-birds being so much account, and I hated to make him cry.”

“There now,” cried Lindsay, jumping up to get the silver quarter out of his pocket.  “He is just like Mrs. Wasp, isn’t he, Grandmother?” But the boy had gone down the walk and over the gate without waiting for anything, although Lindsay ran after him and called.

Lindsay and Grandmother were so excited that they did not know what to do.  They looked out of the gate after the boy, then at each other, and then at the bird.

Lindsay ran to get the hatchet, but he was so excited with joy that he could not use it, so Grandmother had to pry up the slats, one by one; and every time one was lifted, Lindsay would jump up and down and clap his hands, and say, “Oh, Grandmother!”

At last, the very last slat was raised; and then, in a moment, the mocking bird flew up, up, up into the maple tree, and Lindsay and Grandmother kissed each other for joy.

Oh! everything was glad in the garden.  The breezes played pranks, and blew the syringa petals to the ground, and up in the tallest trees the birds had a concert.  Orioles, bluebirds, and thrushes, chattering jays, sleek brown sparrows, and red-capped woodpeckers, were all of them singing for Grandmother and Lindsay; but the sweetest singer was the mocking bird who was singing everybody’s sweet song, and then his own, which was the sweetest of all.

“I know he is glad,” Lindsay said to Grandmother; “for it is, oh, so beautiful to live inside your garden gate!”

THE JOURNEY

    MOTTO FOR THE MOTHER

The whirling wheels, that help us on our way, A lesson to the children, too, will say:  “Go on! there’s work awaiting you to-day; The whole world moves apace, you must not stay.”

A little boy, named Joseph, went with his papa, once upon a time, to visit his Grandma.  Grandma was an old, old lady, with hair as white as drifted snow; and she petted Joseph’s papa almost as much as she did Joseph, for Papa had been her baby long, long before.

It was a fine thing to go to see Grandma; and Joseph would have been willing to stay a long time, if it had not been that Mamma and the baby and big brother were at home.

He knew they needed him there, too, for Mamma wrote it in a letter.

“Dear Papa,” she said, in the letter that the stage coach brought, “When are you, and my precious Joseph coming home?  The baby and Brother and I are well but we want to see you.  We need a little boy here who can hunt hens’ nests and feed chickens, and rock the baby’s cradle.  Please bring one home with you.”

This made Joseph laugh for, of course, Mamma meant him; and though he forgot some of her letter, he always remembered that; and when Papa said; “Look here, Joseph, we must go home,” he was just as glad to go, as he had been to come to see Grandma.