5.  Two had to tell about their visit to Needle-town, and five about the doings at the farm, so it was some time before the eggs were thought of.

6.  Mary had charge of the eggs, and went every morning to look for new ones.

‘Since you went away,’ she said, ’I have had a pair of bantams given me, for my very own.  Here they are!’

‘What little things! and how very pretty!’ cried Dora.  ’Do they know you, Mary?’

7.  ’Yes; I feed them every day.  Here comes the big black hen.  She has been laying an egg.  See how proud she is!  She calls out in that way to let the rest know what she has done.’

8.  ‘Now she is pecking about for food,’ said Harry.

Tom said that fowls were always eating.

‘They are greedy things,’ said Kate.

9.  ‘Oh, look at this gray hen!’ said Harry, ’she picked up a bit of stone just now and ate it!  Does she know no better?’

10.  ‘It is not for food,’ Mary told him; ’she takes it to grind up the hard seeds she has swallowed.  They all go into a strong little bag, and the stones rub and press on the seeds.’

11.  ’I never heard of such a thing!  She keeps a mill inside to grind her food!’

12.  The others laughed, and then Mary went in to get some eggs.  After the basket was filled, the two children said good-bye to their friends, and went home.

THE SPARROW.

shoots spar’-rows steal fruit thou’-sand ba’-bies build spoil beaks ap’-ple blos’-som fruit clean thirst’-y wheat throw

1.  ‘Mother,’ cried Harry, running in one day, ’Jack Denny says he shoots sparrows!’

‘I am very sorry to hear it.  Why does he shoot them?’

’"They steal fruit and corn,” he says.  He wanted me to throw stones at them!’

2.  ’Well, you can tell him about some silly men who killed the sparrows and other birds, and the next year their fruit and corn were eaten up by grubs.  Even the leaves on the trees were eaten.’

3.  ‘Is this true?’

’Quite true.  They had to send for little birds from other places to live in their fields and gardens.  Do you know that a sparrow kills four thousand grubs in one day when her babies are in the nest?

4.  ’One wise man who grows fruit says that his best friends are the sparrows, and he makes holes in the garden-walls for them to build in.  Their sharp eyes see the tiny things that would spoil the fruit, and their sharp beaks nip them up at once.

[Illustration]

5.  ’He loves to see sparrows in an apple-tree in blossom-time; he knows they are saving the apples for him.’

‘But Jack says he has seen them pecking at fruit.’

6.  ’Yes, they like fruit, just as you and I do.  But there would be no fruit at all, if the birds did not eat the grubs.

7.  ’The man I was telling you about puts nets over his trees when the fruit begins to ripen.  And I heard only the other day that it is a good plan to put pans of clean fresh water close to the trees and bushes.  Then the birds will not go so often to the fruit.  They are thirsty and hot, poor things!