On this plateau grew the biggest cherry trees I ever saw, and they bore the biggest and sweetest cherries, though I could not taste any at that time, as the season was past.  I heard the landlady complaining one day to some of her guests that the rascally birds had hardly left her a cherry to put up.

“The saucy little thieves! they must have eaten bushels of the finest fruit,” she said.

“And didn’t you get any?” inquired a childish voice.  There was something familiar in the voice and I flew to the porch railing to see who it was.  And who should it be but dear little Marion.  And there too was her aunty, Miss Dorothy, and the professor, and in the parlor I caught a glimpse of Miss Katie and the colonel.  They were having a pleasant vacation together.

Marion looked inquiringly into the landlady’s face.  No doubt she was thinking the mountain birds were very greedy to eat up all the cherries and not leave one for the poor woman to can.

“Our birds always eat some of our cherries too,” she said, “but they always leave us plenty.”

“There were bushels left on our trees,” observed the landlady’s daughter.  “We had all we wanted, mother.  We couldn’t possibly have used the rest if the birds had not eaten them.  We had a cellar full of canned cherries left over from the year before, you remember, and that is the way it is nearly every year.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” answered her mother impatiently; “but for all that I don’t believe in letting the birds have everything.”

“I never begrudge a bird what it eats,” commented the professor.  “Of course you can discourage the birds, drive them off, break up their nests, starve them out, and have a crop of caterpillars instead of cherries.  But, beg pardon, madam, maybe you don’t object to caterpillars,” and he bowed low to the landlady.

The laugh was against her and I was glad of it, for I didn’t consider it either kind or polite to call us “saucy little thieves.”

We were amused one morning when, flying over a piece of pretty country, we saw a lady moving rapidly along on the red sandy path below.  She seemed to be neither exactly riding nor walking, as she was not on foot nor had she a horse.  On closer inspection it was seen that she was propelling a strange-looking vehicle.  Two of her carriage wheels were gone, and between the remaining two the lady was perched.  At sight of it I was immediately reminded of the queer thing that Johnny Morris rode which the admiral had described to us and called a “wheel.”  I felt sure that this was the same kind of a machine.  The lady looked neither to the right nor to the left, but her glance was fixed intently on the road before her.

Farther along another lady leaned against the fence awaiting her approach.  As she bowled along the friend asked enthusiastically:  “Is it not splendid?”

The rider called back to her:  “It is grand!  It is almost as if I were flying.  I know now how a bird feels.”