Old Mother Magpie was about the busiest character in the forest.  But you must know that there is a great difference between being busy and being industrious.  One may be very busy all the time, and yet not in the least industrious; and this was the case with Mother Magpie.

She was always full of everybody’s business but her own—up and down, here and there, everywhere but in her own nest, knowing everyone’s affairs, telling what everybody had been doing or ought to do, and ready to cast her advice gratis at every bird and beast of the woods.

Now she bustled up to the parsonage at the top of the oak-tree, to tell old Parson Too-Whit what she thought he ought to preach for his next sermon, and how dreadful the morals of the parish were becoming.  Then, having perfectly bewildered the poor old gentleman, who was always sleepy of a Monday morning, Mother Magpie would take a peep into Mrs. Oriole’s nest, sit chattering on a bough above, and pour forth floods of advice, which, poor little Mrs. Oriole used to say to her husband, bewildered her more than a hard north-east storm.

“Depend upon it, my dear,” Mother Magpie would say, “that this way of building your nest, swinging like an old empty stocking from a bough, isn’t at all the thing.  I never built one so in my life, and I never have headaches.  Now you complain always that your head aches whenever I call upon you.  It’s all on account of this way of swinging and swaying about in such an absurd manner.”

“But, my dear,” piped Mrs. Oriole timidly, “the Orioles always have built in this manner, and it suits our constitution.”

“A fiddle on your constitution!  How can you tell what agrees with your constitution unless you try?  You own you are not well; you are subject to headaches; and every physician will tell you that a tilting motion disorders the stomach and acts upon the brain.  Ask old Dr. Kite.  I was talking with him about your case only yesterday, and says he, ‘Mrs. Magpie, I perfectly agree with you.’”

“But my husband prefers this style of building.”

“That’s only because he isn’t properly instructed.  Pray, did you ever attend Dr. Kite’s lectures on the nervous system?”

“No, I have no time to attend lectures.  Who would sit on the eggs?”

“Why, your husband, to be sure; don’t he take his turn in sitting?  If he don’t, he ought to.  I shall speak to him about it.  My husband always sits regularly half the time, that I may have time to go about and exercise.”

“O Mrs. Magpie, pray don’t speak to my husband; he will think I’ve been complaining.”

“No, no, he won’t.  Let me alone.  I understand just how to say the thing.  I’ve advised hundreds of young husbands in my day, and I never gave offence.”

“But I tell you, Mrs. Magpie, I don’t want any interference between my husband and me, and I will not have it,” says Mrs. Oriole, with her little round eyes flashing with indignation.

“Don’t put yourself in a passion, my dear; the more you talk, the more sure I am that your nervous system is running down, or you wouldn’t forget good manners in this way.  You’d better take my advice, for I understand just what to do,”—and away sails Mother Magpie; and presently young Oriole comes home all in a flutter.

“I say, my dear, if you will persist in gossiping over our private family matters with that old Mother Magpie—”

“My dear, I don’t gossip.  She comes and bores me to death with talking, and then goes off and mistakes what she has been saying for what I said.”

“But you must cut her.”

“I try to, all I can; but she won’t be cut.”

“It’s enough to make a bird swear,” said Tommy Oriole.

Tommy Oriole, to say the truth, had as good a heart as ever beat under bird’s feathers; but then he had a weakness for concerts and general society, because he was held to be, by all odds, the handsomest bird in the woods, and sung like an angel; and so the truth was he didn’t confine himself so much to the domestic nest as Tom Titmouse or Billy Wren.  But he determined that he wouldn’t have old Mother Magpie interfering with his affairs.

“The fact is,” quoth Tommy, “I am a society bird, and Nature has marked out for me a course beyond the range of the commonplace, and my wife must learn to accommodate.  If she has a brilliant husband, whose success gratifies her ambition and places her in a distinguished public position, she must pay something for it.  I’m sure Billy Wren’s wife would give her very bill to see her husband in the circles where I am quite at home.  To say the truth, my wife was all well enough content till old Mother Magpie interfered.  It is quite my duty to take strong ground, and show that I cannot be dictated to.”

So, after this, Tommy Oriole went to rather more concerts, and spent less time at home than ever he did before, which was all that Mother Magpie effected in that quarter.  I confess this was very bad in Tommy; but then birds are no better than men in domestic matters, and sometimes will take the most unreasonable courses, if a meddlesome Magpie gets her claw into their nest.

But old Mother Magpie had now got a new business in hand in another quarter.  She bustled off down to Water-Dock Lane, where, as we said in a former narrative, lived the old music-teacher, Dr. Bullfrog.  The poor old doctor was a simple-minded, good, amiable creature, who had played the double-bass and led the forest choir on all public occasions since nobody knows when.  Latterly some youngsters had arisen who sneered at his performances as behind the age.  In fact, since a great city had grown up in the vicinity of the forest, tribes of wandering boys broke up the simple tastes and quiet habits which old Mother Nature had always kept up in those parts.  They pulled the young checkerberry before it even had time to blossom, rooted up the sassafras shrubs and gnawed their roots, fired off guns at the birds, and on several occasions, when old Dr. Bullfrog was leading a concert, had dashed in and broken up the choir by throwing stones.

This was not the worst of it.  The little varlets had a way of jeering at the simple old doctor and his concerts, and mimicking the tones of his bass-viol.  “There you go, Paddy-go-donk, Paddy-go-donk—umph—chunk,” some rascal of a boy would shout, while poor old Bullfrog’s yellow spectacles would be bedewed with tears of honest indignation.  In time, the jeers of these little savages began to tell on the society in the forest, and to corrupt their simple manners; and it was whispered among the younger and more heavy birds and squirrels that old Bullfrog was a bore, and that it was time to get up a new style of music in the parish, and to give the charge of it to some more modern performer.

Poor old Dr. Bullfrog knew nothing of this, however, and was doing his simple best, in peace, when Mother Magpie called in upon him one morning.

“Well, neighbour, how unreasonable people are!  Who would have thought that the youth of our generation should have no more consideration for established merit?  Now, for my part, I think your music-teaching never was better; and as for our choir, I maintain constantly that it never was in better order, but—Well, one may wear her tongue out, but one can never make these young folks listen to reason.”

“I really don’t understand you, ma’am,” said poor Dr. Bullfrog.

“What! you haven’t heard of a committee that is going to call on you, to ask you to resign the care of the parish music?”

“Madam,” said Dr. Bullfrog, with all that energy of tone for which he was remarkable, “I don’t believe it,—I can’t believe it.  You must have made a mistake.”

“I mistake!  No, no, my good friend; I never make mistakes.  What I know, I know certainly.  Wasn’t it I that said I knew there was an engagement between Tim Chipmunk and Nancy Nibble, who are married this very day?  I knew that thing six weeks before any bird or beast in our parts; and I can tell you, you are going to be scandalously and ungratefully treated, Dr. Bullfrog.”

“Bless me, we shall all be ruined!” said Mrs. Bullfrog; “my poor husband—”

“Oh, as to that, if you take things in time, and listen to my advice,” said Mother Magpie, “we may yet pull you through.  You must alter your style a little,—adapt it to modern times.  Everybody now is a little touched with the operatic fever, and there’s Tommy Oriole has been to New Orleans and brought back a touch of the artistic.  If you would try his style a little,—something Tyrolean, you see.”

“Dear madam, consider my voice.  I never could hit the high notes.”

“How do you know?  It’s all practice; Tommy Oriole says so.  Just try the scales.  As to your voice, your manner of living has a great deal to do with it.  I always did tell you that your passion for water injured your singing.  Suppose Tommy Oriole should sit half his days up to his hips in water, as you do,—his voice would be as hoarse and rough as yours.  Come up on the bank and learn to perch, as we birds do.  We are the true musical race.”

And so poor Mr. Bullfrog was persuaded to forego his pleasant little cottage under the cat-tails, where his green spectacles and honest round back had excited, even in the minds of the boys, sentiments of respect and compassion.  He came up into the garden, and established himself under a burdock, and began to practise Italian scales.

The result was, that poor old Dr. Bullfrog, instead of being considered as a respectable old bore, got himself universally laughed at for aping fashionable manners.  Every bird and beast in the forest had a gibe at him; and even old Parson Too-Whit thought it worth his while to make him a pastoral call, and admonish him about courses unbefitting his age and standing.  As to Mother Magpie, you may be sure that she assured every one how sorry she was that dear old Dr. Bullfrog had made such a fool of himself; if he had taken her advice, he would have kept on respectably as a nice old Bullfrog should.

But the tragedy for the poor old music-teacher grew even more melancholy in its termination; for one day, as he was sitting disconsolately under a currant-bush in the garden, practising his poor old notes in a quiet way, thump came a great blow of a hoe, which nearly broke his back.

“Hallo! what ugly beast have we got here?” said Tom Noakes, the gardener’s boy.  “Here, here, Wasp, my boy.”

What a fright for a poor, quiet, old Bullfrog, as little wiry, wicked Wasp came at him, barking and yelping.  He jumped with all his force sheer over a patch of bushes into the river, and swam back to his old home among the cat-tails.  And always after that it was observable that he was very low-spirited, and took very dark views of life; but nothing made him so angry as any allusion to Mother Magpie, of whom, from that time, he never spoke except as Old Mother Mischief.

Once upon a time a gentleman went out into a great forest, and cut away the trees, and built there a very nice little cottage.  It was set very low on the ground, and had very large bow-windows, and so much of it was glass that one could look through it on every side and see what was going on in the forest.  You could see the shadows of the fern-leaves, as they flickered and wavered over the ground, and the scarlet partridge-berry and winter-green plums that matted round the roots of the trees, and the bright spots of sunshine that fell through their branches and went dancing about among the bushes and leaves at their roots.  You could see the chirping sparrows and the thrushes and robins and bluebirds building their nests here and there among the branches, and watch them from day to day as they laid their eggs and hatched their young.  You could also see red squirrels, and gray squirrels, and little striped chip-squirrels, darting and springing about, here and there and everywhere, running races with each other from bough to bough, and chattering at each other in the gayest possible manner.

You may be sure that such a strange thing as a house for human beings to live in did not come into this wild wood without making quite a stir and excitement among the inhabitants that lived there before.  All the time it was building, there was the greatest possible commotion in the breasts of all the older population; and there wasn’t even a black ant, or a cricket, that did not have his own opinion about it, and did not tell the other ants and crickets just what he thought the world was coming to in consequence.

Old Mrs. Rabbit declared that the hammering and pounding made her nervous, and gave her most melancholy forebodings of evil times.  “Depend upon it, children,” she said to her long-eared family, “no good will come to us from this establishment.  Where man is, there comes always trouble for us poor rabbits.”

The old chestnut-tree, that grew on the edge of the woodland ravine, drew a great sigh which shook all his leaves, and expressed it as his conviction that no good would ever come of it,—a conviction that at once struck to the heart of every chestnut-burr.  The squirrels talked together of the dreadful state of things that would ensue.  “Why!” said old Father Gray, “it’s evident that Nature made the nuts for us; but one of these great human creatures will carry off and gormandize upon what would keep a hundred poor families of squirrels in comfort.”  Old Ground-mole said it did not require very sharp eyes to see into the future, and it would just end in bringing down the price of real estate in the whole vicinity, so that every decent-minded and respectable quadruped would be obliged to move away;—for his part, he was ready to sell out for anything he could get.  The bluebirds and bobolinks, it is true, took more cheerful views of matters; but then, as old Mrs. Ground-mole observed, they were a flighty set,—half their time careering and dissipating in the Southern States,—and could not be expected to have that patriotic attachment to their native soil that those had who had grubbed in it from their earliest days.

“This race of man,” said the old chestnut-tree, “is never ceasing in its restless warfare on Nature.  In our forest solitudes hitherto how peacefully, how quietly, how regularly has everything gone on!  Not a flower has missed its appointed time of blossoming, or failed to perfect its fruit.  No matter how hard has been the winter, how loud the winds have roared, and how high the snow-banks have been piled, all has come right again in spring.  Not the least root has lost itself under the snows, so as not to be ready with its fresh leaves and blossoms when the sun returns to melt the frosty chains of winter.  We have storms sometimes that threaten to shake everything to pieces,—the thunder roars, the lightning flashes, and the winds howl and beat; but, when all is past, everything comes out better and brighter than before,—not a bird is killed, not the frailest flower destroyed.  But man comes, and in one day he will make a desolation that centuries cannot repair.  Ignorant boor that he is, and all incapable of appreciating the glorious works of Nature, it seems to be his glory to be able to destroy in a few hours what it was the work of ages to produce.  The noble oak, that has been cut away to build this contemptible human dwelling, had a life older and wiser than that of any man in this country.  That tree has seen generations of men come and go.  It was a fresh young tree when Shakespeare was born; it was hardly a middle-aged tree when he died; it was growing here when the first ship brought the white men to our shores, and hundreds and hundreds of those whom they call bravest, wisest, strongest,—warriors, statesmen, orators, and poets,—have been born, have grown up, lived, and died, while yet it has outlived them all.  It has seen more wisdom than the best of them; but two or three hours of brutal strength sufficed to lay it low.  Which of these dolts could make a tree?  I’d like to see them do anything like it.  How noisy and clumsy are all their movements,—chopping, pounding, rasping, hammering.  And, after all, what do they build?  In the forest we do everything so quietly.  A tree would be ashamed of itself that could not get its growth without making such a noise and dust and fuss.  Our life is the perfection of good manners.  For my part, I feel degraded at the mere presence of these human beings; but, alas! I am old; a hollow place at my heart warns me of the progress of decay, and probably it will be seized upon by these rapacious creatures as an excuse for laying me as low as my noble green brother.”

In spite of all this disquiet about it, the little cottage grew and was finished.  The walls were covered with pretty paper, the floors carpeted with pretty carpets; and, in fact, when it was all arranged, and the garden walks laid out, and beds of flowers planted around, it began to be confessed, even among the most critical, that it was not after all so bad a thing as was to have been feared.

A black ant went in one day and made a tour of exploration up and down, over chairs and tables, up the ceilings and down again, and, coming out, wrote an article for the Crickets’ Gazette, in which he described the new abode as a veritable palace.  Several butterflies fluttered in and sailed about and were wonderfully delighted, and then a bumble-bee and two or three honey-bees, who expressed themselves well pleased with the house, but more especially enchanted with the garden.  In fact, when it was found that the proprietors were very fond of the rural solitudes of Nature, and had come out there for the purpose of enjoying them undisturbed; that they watched and spared the anemones, and the violets, and bloodroots, and dog’s-tooth violets, and little woolly rolls of fern that began to grow up under the trees in spring; that they never allowed a gun to be fired to scare the birds, and watched the building of their nests with the greatest interest,—then an opinion in favour of human beings began to gain ground, and every cricket and bird and beast was loud in their praise.

“Mamma,” said young Tit-bit, a frisky young squirrel, to his mother one day, “why won’t you let Frisky and me go into that pretty new cottage to play?”

“My dear,” said his mother, who was a very wary and careful old squirrel, “how can you think of it?  The race of man are full of devices for traps and pitfalls, and who could say what might happen if you put yourself in their power?  If you had wings like the butterflies and bees, you might fly in and out again, and so gratify your curiosity; but, as matters stand, it’s best for you to keep well out of their way.”

“But, mother, there is such a nice, good lady lives there!  I believe she is a good fairy, and she seems to love us all so; she sits in the bow-window and watches us for hours, and she scatters corn all round at the roots of the tree for us to eat.”

“She is nice enough,” said the old mother-squirrel, “if you keep far enough off; but I tell you, you can’t be too careful.”

Now this good fairy that the squirrels discoursed about was a nice little old lady that the children used to call Aunt Esther, and she was a dear lover of birds and squirrels, and all sorts of animals, and had studied their little ways till she knew just what would please them; and so she would every day throw out crumbs for the sparrows, and little bits of bread and wool and cotton to help the birds that were building their nests, and would scatter corn and nuts for the squirrels; and while she sat at her work in the bow-window she would smile to see the birds flying away with the wool, and the squirrels nibbling their nuts.  After a while the birds grew so tame that they would hop into the bow-window and eat their crumbs off the carpet.

“There, mamma,” said Tit-bit and Frisky, “only see Jenny Wren and Cock Robin have been in at the bow-window, and it didn’t hurt them, and why can’t we go?”

“Well, my dears,” said old Mother Squirrel, “you must do it very carefully; never forget that you haven’t wings like Jenny Wren and Cock Robin.”

So the next day Aunt Esther laid a train of corn from the roots of the trees to the bow-window, and then from the bow-window to her work-basket, which stood on the floor beside her; and then she put quite a handful of corn in the work-basket, and sat down by it, and seemed intent on her sewing.  Very soon, creep, creep, creep, came Tit-bit and Frisky to the window, and then into the room, just as sly and as still as could be, and Aunt Esther sat just like a statue for fear of disturbing them.  They looked all around in high glee, and when they came to the basket it seemed to them a wonderful little summer-house, made on purpose for them to play in.  They nosed about in it, and turned over the scissors and the needle-book, and took a nibble at her white wax, and jostled the spools, meanwhile stowing away the corn on each side of their little chops, till they both of them looked as if they had the mumps.

At Rye Beach, during our summer’s vacation, there came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,—days when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by drops, but by pailfuls.  The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water dashed along the ground and careered in foamy rills along the roadside, and the bushes bent beneath the constant flood.  It was plain that there was to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides; and so, shivering and drawing our blanket-shawls close about us, we sat down at the window to watch the storm outside.

The rose-bushes under the window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it.  On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch.  A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, and as different as possible from the smart, pert, airy little character that we had so often seen flirting with the flowers.  He was evidently a humming-bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again looked to us exceedingly doubtful.  Immediately, however, we sent out to have him taken in.  When the friendly hand seized him, he gave a little, faint, watery squeak, evidently thinking that his last hour was come, and that grim death was about to carry him off to the land of dead birds.  What a time we had reviving him,—holding the little wet thing in the warm hollow of our hands, and feeling him shiver and palpitate!  His eyes were fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the least motion in them.  Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he meant at any rate to find out where he was.

Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the little head with a pair of round brilliant eyes.  Then we bethought ourselves of feeding him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we held to his bill.  After turning his head attentively, like a bird who knew what he was about and didn’t mean to be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish.  Immediately he was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for getting him a settled establishment in our apartment.  I gave up my work-box to him for a sleeping-room, and it was medically ordered that he should take a nap.  So we filled the box with cotton, and he was formally put to bed, with a folded cambric handkerchief round his neck, to keep him from beating his wings.  Out of his white wrappings he looked forth green and grave as any judge with his bright round eyes.  Like a bird of discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done to him, and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep.

The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated with holes for purposes of ventilation; for even humming-birds have a little pair of lungs, and need their own little portion of air to fill them, so that they may make bright scarlet little drops of blood to keep life’s fire burning in their tiny bodies.  Our bird’s lungs manufactured brilliant blood, as we found out by experience; for in his first nap he contrived to nestle himself into the cotton of which his bed was made, and to get more of it than he needed into his long bill.  We pulled it out as carefully as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, bright scarlet, little drops of blood.  Our chief medical authority looked grave, pronounced a probable hemorrhage from the lungs, and gave him over at once.  We, less scientific, declared that we had only cut his little tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he would do well enough in time,—as it afterwards appeared he did, for from that day there was no more bleeding.  In the course of the second day he began to take short flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to return to us; perching on our fingers or heads or shoulders, and sometimes choosing to sit in this way for half an hour at a time.  “These great giants,” he seemed to say to himself, “are not bad people after all; they have a comfortable way with them; how nicely they dried and warmed me!  Truly a bird might do worse than to live with them.”

So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little company of three that usually sat and read, worked and sketched, in that apartment, and we christened him “Hum, the son of Buz.”  He became an individuality, a character, whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some extracts from these will show what some of his little ways were:—

“Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like decorum.  He has but one weakness—he will occasionally jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and then appear to wonder where it goes to.  His plumage is in rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances.  I have sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiræa which I brought in for him.  When absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have drawn him.  Mr. A— reads Macaulay to us, and you should see the wise air with which, perched on Jenny’s thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical attention.  His confidence in us seems unbounded: he lets us stroke his head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better pleased than when sitting, as he has been doing all this while, on my hand, turning up his bill, and watching my face with great edification.

“I have just been having a sort of maternal struggle to make him go to bed in his box; but he evidently considers himself sufficiently convalescent to make a stand for his rights as a bird, and so scratched indignantly out of his wrappings, and set himself up to roost on the edge of the box, with an air worthy of a turkey, at the very least.  Having brought in a lamp, he has opened his eyes round and wide, and sits cocking his little head at me reflectively.”

When the weather cleared away, and the sun came out bright, Hum became entirely well, and seemed resolved to take the measure of his new life with us.  Our windows were closed in the lower part of the sash by frames with mosquito gauze, so that the sun and air found free admission, and yet our little rover could not pass out.  On the first sunny day he took an exact survey of our apartment from ceiling to floor, humming about, examining every point with his bill—all the crevices, mouldings, each little indentation in the bed-posts, each window-pane, each chair and stand; and, as it was a very simply furnished seaside apartment, his scrutiny was soon finished.  We wondered at first what this was all about; but on watching him more closely, we found that he was actively engaged in getting his living, by darting out his long tongue hither and thither, and drawing in all the tiny flies and insects which in summer time are to be found in an apartment.  In short, we found that, though the nectar of flowers was his dessert, yet he had his roast beef and mutton-chop to look after, and that his bright, brilliant blood was not made out of a simple vegetarian diet.  Very shrewd and keen he was, too, in measuring the size of insects before he attempted to swallow them.  The smallest class were whisked off with lightning speed; but about larger ones he would sometimes wheel and hum for some minutes, darting hither and thither, and surveying them warily, and if satisfied that they could be carried, he would come down with a quick, central dart which would finish the unfortunate at a snap.  The larger flies seemed to irritate him, especially when they intimated to him that his plumage was sugary, by settling on his wings and tail; when he would lay about him spitefully, wielding his bill like a sword.  A grasshopper that strayed in, and was sunning himself on the window-seat, gave him great discomposure.  Hum evidently considered him an intruder, and seemed to long to make a dive at him; but, with characteristic prudence, confined himself to threatening movements, which did not exactly hit.  He saw evidently that he could not swallow him whole, and what might ensue from trying him piecemeal he wisely forbore to essay.

Hum had his own favourite places and perches.  From the first day he chose for his nightly roost a towel-line which had been drawn across the corner over the wash-stand, where he every night established himself with one claw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping the line, and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little chestnut-burr, he would resign himself to the soundest sleep.  He did not tuck his head under his wing, but seemed to sink it down between his shoulders, with his bill almost straight up in the air.  One evening one of us, going to use the towel, jarred the line, and soon after found that Hum had been thrown from his perch, and was hanging head downward, fast asleep, still clinging to the line.  Another evening, being discomposed by somebody coming to the towel-line after he had settled himself, he fluttered off; but so sleepy that he had not discretion to poise himself again, and was found clinging, like a little bunch of green floss silk, to the mosquito netting of the window.

A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and put it up over the looking-glass.  Hum noticed it before it had been there five minutes, flew to it, and began a regular survey, perching now here, now there, till he seemed to find a twig that exactly suited him; and after that he roosted there every night.  Who does not see in this change all the signs of reflection and reason that are shown by us in thinking over our circumstances, and trying to better them?  It seemed to say in so many words: “That towel-line is an unsafe place for a bird; I get frightened, and wake from bad dreams to find myself head downwards; so I will find a better roost on this twig.”

When our little Jenny one day put on a clean white muslin gown embellished with red sprigs, Hum flew towards her, and with his bill made instant examination of these new appearances; and one day, being very affectionately disposed, perched himself on her shoulder, and sat some time.  On another occasion, while Mr. A was reading, Hum established himself on the top of his head just over the middle of his forehead, in the precise place where our young belles have lately worn stuffed humming-birds, making him look as if dressed out for a party.  Hum’s most favourite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair, which, being covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he could catch his little claws.  There he would sit, balancing himself cleverly if its occupant chose to swing to and fro, and seeming to be listening to the conversation or reading.

Hum had his different moods, like human beings.  On cold, cloudy, gray days he appeared to be somewhat depressed in spirits, hummed less about the room, and sat humped up with his feathers ruffled, looking as much like a bird in a great-coat as possible.  But on hot, sunny days, every feather sleeked itself down, and his little body looked natty and trim, his head alert, his eyes bright, and it was impossible to come near him, for his agility.  Then let mosquitoes and little flies look about them!  Hum snapped them up without mercy, and seemed to be all over the ceiling in a moment, and resisted all our efforts at any personal familiarity with a saucy alacrity.

Hum had his established institutions in our room, the chief of which was a tumbler with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the mood—sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten.  When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler; which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians that he would fall in some—day and be drowned.  For which reason it was agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the bottom of the tumbler.  A wise precaution this proved; for the next morning I was awaked, not by the usual hum over my head, but by a sharp little flutter, and found Mr. Hum beating his wings in the tumbler—having actually tumbled in during his energetic efforts to get his morning coffee before I was awake.

Hum seemed perfectly happy and satisfied in his quarters; but one day, when the door was left open, he made a dart out, and so into the open sunshine.  Then, to be sure, we thought we had lost him.  We took the mosquito netting, out of all the windows, and, setting his tumbler of sugar and water in a conspicuous place, went about our usual occupations.  We saw him joyous and brisk among the honeysuckles outside the window, and it was gravely predicted that he would return no more.  But at dinner-time in came Hum, familiar as possible, and sat down to his spoon as if nothing had happened.  Instantly we closed our windows and had him secure once more.

At another time I was going to ride to the Atlantic House, about a mile from my boarding-place.  I left all secure, as I supposed, at home.  While gathering moss on the walls there, I was surprised by a little green humming-bird flying familiarly right towards my face and humming above my head.  I called out, “Here is Hum’s very brother.”  But, on returning home, I saw that the door of the room was open, and Hum was gone.  Now certainly we gave him up for lost.  I sat down to painting, and in a few minutes in flew Hum, and settled on the edge of my tumbler in a social, confidential way, which seemed to say, “Oh, you’ve got back then.”  After taking his usual drink of sugar and water, he began to fly about the ceiling as usual, and we gladly shut him in.

When our five weeks at the seaside were up, and it was time to go home, we had great questionings what was to be done with Hum.  To get him home with us was our desire; but who ever heard of a humming-bird travelling by railroad?  Great were the consultings.  A little basket of Indian work was filled up with cambric handkerchiefs, and a bottle of sugar and water provided, and we started with him for a day’s journey.  When we arrived at night the first care was to see what had become of Hum, who had not been looked at since we fed him with sugar and water in Boston.  We found him alive and well, but so dead asleep that we could not wake him to roost; so we put him to bed on a toilet cushion, and arranged his tumbler for morning.  The next day found him alive and humming, exploring the room and pictures, perching now here and now there; but as the weather was chilly, he sat for the most part of the time in a humped-up state on the tip of a pair of stag’s horns.  We moved him to a more sunny apartment; but, alas! the equinoctial storm came on, and there was no sun to be had for days.  Hum was blue; the pleasant seaside days were over; his room was lonely, the pleasant three that had enlivened the apartment at Rye no longer came in and out; evidently he was lonesome, and gave way to depression.  One chilly morning he managed again to fall into his tumbler, and wet himself through; and notwithstanding warm bathings and tender nursings, the poor little fellow seemed to get diphtheria, or something quite as bad for humming-birds.

We carried him to a neighbouring sunny parlour, where ivy embowers all the walls and the sun lies all day.  There he revived a little, danced up and down, perched on a green spray that was wreathed across the breast of a Psyche, and looked then like a little flitting soul returning to its rest.  Towards evening he drooped; and, having been nursed and warmed and cared for, he was put to sleep on a green twig laid on the piano.  In that sleep the little head drooped—nodded—fell; and little Hum went where other bright dreams go—to the Land of the Hereafter.

We have just built our house in rather an out-of-the-way place—on the bank of a river, and under the shade of a patch of woods which is a veritable remain of quite an ancient forest.  The checkerberry and partridge-plum, with their glossy green leaves and scarlet berries, still carpet the ground under its deep shadows; and prince’s-pine and other kindred evergreens declare its native wildness,—for these are children of the wild woods, that never come after plough and harrow have once broken a soil.

When we tried to look out the spot for our house, we had to get a surveyor to go before us and cut a path through the dense underbrush that was laced together in a general network of boughs and leaves, and grew so high as to overtop our heads.  Where the house stands, four or five great old oaks and chestnuts had to be cut away to let it in; and now it stands on the bank of the river, the edges of which are still overhung with old forest-trees, chestnuts and oaks, which look at themselves in the glassy stream.

A little knoll near the house was chosen for a garden-spot; a dense, dark mass of trees above, of bushes in mid-air, and of all sorts of ferns and wild-flowers and creeping vines on the ground.  All these had to be cleared out, and a dozen great trees cut down and dragged off to a neighbouring saw-mill, there to be transformed into boards to finish off our house.  Then, fetching a great machine, such as might be used to pull a giant’s teeth, with ropes, pulleys, oxen, and men, and might and main, we pulled out the stumps, with their great prongs and their network of roots and fibres; and then, alas! we had to begin with all the pretty wild, lovely bushes, and the checkerberries and ferns and wild blackberries and huckleberry-bushes, and dig them up remorselessly, that we might plant our corn and squashes.  And so we got a house and a garden right out of the heart of our piece of wild wood, about a mile from the city of H-.

Well, then, people said it was a lonely place, and far from neighbours,—by which they meant that it was a good way for them to come to see us.  But we soon found that whoever goes into the woods to live finds neighbours of a new kind, and some to whom it is rather hard to become accustomed.

For instance, on a fine day early in April, as we were crossing over to superintend the building of our house, we were startled by a striped snake, with his little bright eyes, raising himself to look at us, and putting out his red, forked tongue.  Now there is no more harm in these little garden-snakes than there is in a robin or a squirrel—they are poor little, peaceable, timid creatures, which could not do any harm if they would; but the prejudices of society are so strong against them that one does not like to cultivate too much intimacy with them.  So we tried to turn out of our path into a tangle of bushes; and there, instead of one, we found four snakes.  We turned on the other side, and there were two more.  In short, everywhere we looked, the dry leaves were rustling and coiling with them; and we were in despair.  In vain we said that they were harmless as kittens, and tried to persuade ourselves that their little bright eyes were pretty, and that their serpentine movements were in the exact line of beauty: for the life of us, we could not help remembering their family name and connections; we thought of those disagreeable gentlemen the anacondas, the rattlesnakes, and the copper-heads, and all of that bad line, immediate family friends of the old serpent to whom we are indebted for all the mischief that is done in this world.  So we were quite apprehensive when we saw how our new neighbourhood was infested by them, until a neighbour calmed our fears by telling us that snakes always crawled out of their holes to sun themselves in the spring, and that in a day or two they would all be gone.

So it proved.  It was evident they were all out merely to do their spring shopping, or something that serves with them the same purpose that spring shopping does with us; and where they went afterwards we do not know.  People speak of snakes’ holes, and we have seen them disappearing into such subterranean chambers; but we never opened one to see what sort of underground housekeeping went on there.  After the first few days of spring, a snake was a rare visitor, though now and then one appeared.

One was discovered taking his noontide repast one day in a manner which excited much prejudice.  He was, in fact, regaling himself by sucking down into his maw a small frog, which he had begun to swallow at the toes, and had drawn about half down.  The frog, it must be confessed, seemed to view this arrangement with great indifference, making no struggle, and sitting solemnly, with his great unwinking eyes, to be sucked in at the leisure of his captor.  There was immense sympathy, however, excited for him in the family circle; and it was voted that a snake which indulged in such very disagreeable modes of eating his dinner was not to be tolerated in our vicinity.  So I have reason to believe that that was his last meal.

Another of our wild woodland neighbours made us some trouble.  It was no other than a veritable woodchuck, whose hole we had often wondered at when we were scrambling through the underbrush after spring flowers.  The hole was about the size of a peck-measure, and had two openings about six feet apart.  The occupant was a gentleman we never had had the pleasure of seeing, but we soon learned his existence from his ravages in our garden.  He had a taste, it appears, for the very kind of things we wanted to eat ourselves, and helped himself without asking.  We had a row of fine, crisp heads of lettuce, which were the pride of our gardening, and out of which he would from day to day select for his table just the plants we had marked for ours.  He also nibbled our young beans; and so at last we were reluctantly obliged to let John Gardiner set a trap for him.  Poor old simple-minded hermit, he was too artless for this world!  He was caught at the very first snap, and found dead in the trap,—the agitation and distress having broken his poor woodland heart, and killed him.  We were grieved to the very soul when the poor fat old fellow was dragged out, with his useless paws standing up stiff and imploring.  As it was, he was given to Denis, our pig, which, without a single scruple of delicacy, ate him up as thoroughly as he ate up the lettuce.

This business of eating, it appears, must go on all through creation.  We eat ducks, turkeys, and chickens, though we don’t swallow them whole, feathers and all.  Our four-footed friends, less civilized, take things with more directness and simplicity, and chew each other up without ceremony, or swallow each other alive.  Of these unceremonious habits we had other instances.

Our house had a central court on the southern side, into which looked the library, dining-room, and front hall, as well as several of the upper chambers.  It was designed to be closed in with glass, to serve as a conservatory in winter; and meanwhile we had filled it with splendid plumy ferns, taken up out of the neighbouring wood.  In the centre was a fountain surrounded by stones, shells, mosses, and various water-plants.  We had bought three little goldfish to swim in our basin; and the spray of it, as it rose in the air and rippled back into the water, was the pleasantest possible sound of a hot day.  We used to lie on the sofa in the hall, and look into the court, and fancy we saw some scene of fairy-land, and water-sprites coming up from the fountain.  Suddenly a new-comer presented himself,—no other than an immense bull-frog, that had hopped up from the neighbouring river, apparently with a view to making a permanent settlement in and about our fountain.  He was to be seen, often for hours, sitting reflectively on the edge of it, beneath the broad shadow of the calla-leaves.  When sometimes missed thence, he would be found under the ample shield of a great bignonia, whose striped leaves grew hard by.

The family were prejudiced against him.  What did he want there?  It was surely some sinister motive impelled him.  He was probably watching for an opportunity to gobble up the goldfish.  We took his part, however, and strenuously defended his moral character, and patronized him in all ways.  We gave him the name of Unke, and maintained that he was a well-conducted, philosophical old water-sprite, who showed his good taste in wanting to take up his abode in our conservatory.  We even defended his personal appearance, praised the invisible-green coat which he wore on his back, and his gray vest, and solemn gold spectacles; and though he always felt remarkably slimy when we touched him, yet, as he would sit still and allow us to stroke his head and pat his back, we concluded his social feelings might be warm, notwithstanding a cold exterior.  Who knew, after all, but he might be a beautiful young prince, enchanted there till the princess should come to drop the golden ball into the fountain, and so give him a chance to marry her and turn into a man again?  Such things, we are credibly informed, are matters of frequent occurrence in Germany.  Why not here?

By-and-by there came to our fountain another visitor,—a frisky, green young frog of the identical kind spoken of by the poet:—

“There was a frog lived in a well,
Rig dum pully metakimo.”

This thoughtless, dapper individual, with his bright green coat, his faultless white vest, and sea-green tights, became rather the popular favourite.  He seemed just rakish and gallant enough to fulfil the conditions of the song:—

“The frog he would a-courting ride,
With sword and pistol by his side.”

This lively young fellow, whom we shall call Cri-Cri, like other frisky and gay young people, carried the day quite over the head of the solemn old philosopher under the calla-leaves.  At night, when all was still, he would trill a joyous little note in his throat, while old Unke would answer only with a cracked guttural more singular than agreeable; and to all outward appearance the two were as good friends as their different natures would allow.

One day, however, the conservatory became the scene of a tragedy of the deepest dye.  We were summoned below by shrieks and howls of horror.  “Do pray come down and see what this vile, nasty, horrid old frog has been doing!”  Down we came; and there sat our virtuous old philosopher, with his poor little brother’s hind legs still sticking out of the corner of his mouth, as if he were smoking them for a cigar, all helplessly palpitating as they were.  In fact, our solemn old friend had done what many a solemn hypocrite before has done,—swallowed his poor brother, neck and crop,—and sat there with the most brazen indifference, looking as if he had done the most proper and virtuous thing in the world.

Immediately he was marched out of the conservatory at the point of a walking-stick, and made to hop down to the river, into whose waters he splashed, and we saw him no more.  We regret to say that the popular indignation was so precipitate in its results; otherwise the special artist who sketched Hum, the son of Buz, intended to have made a sketch of the old villain, as he sat with his luckless victim’s hind legs projecting from his solemn mouth.  With all his moral faults, he was a good sitter, and would probably have sat immovable any length of time that could be desired.

Of other woodland neighbours there were some which we saw occasionally.  The shores of the river were lined here and there with the holes of the muskrats; and in rowing by their settlements, we were sometimes strongly reminded of them by the overpowering odour of the perfume from which they get their name.  There were also owls, whose nests were high up in some of the old chestnut-trees.  Often in the lonely hours of the night we could hear them gibbering with a sort of wild, hollow laugh among the distant trees.  But one tenant of the woods made us some trouble in the autumn.  It was a little flying-squirrel, who took to making excursions into our house in the night season, coming down the chimney into the chambers, rustling about among the clothes, cracking nuts or nibbling at any morsels of anything that suited his fancy.  For a long time the inmates of the rooms were awakened in the night by mysterious noises, thumps, and rappings, and so lighted candles, and searched in vain to find whence they came; for the moment any movement was made, the rogue whipped up the chimney, and left us a prey to the most mysterious alarms.  What could it be?

But one night our fine gentleman bounced in at the window of another room, which had no fireplace; and the fair occupant, rising in the night, shut the window, without suspecting that she had cut off the retreat of any of her woodland neighbours.  The next morning she was startled by what she thought a gray rat running past her bed.  She rose to pursue him, when he ran up the wall, and clung against the plastering, showing himself very plainly a gray flying-squirrel, with large, soft eyes, and wings which consisted of a membrane uniting the fore paws to the hind ones, like those of a bat.  He was chased into the conservatory, and a window being opened, out he flew upon the ground, and made away for his native woods, and thus put an end to many fears as to the nature of our nocturnal rappings.

So you see how many neighbours we found by living in the woods, and, after all, no worse ones than are found in the great world.

And now, at the last, I am going to tell you something of the ways and doings of one of the queer little people, whom I shall call Whiskey.

You cannot imagine how pretty he is.  His back has the most beautiful smooth shining stripes of reddish brown and black, his eyes shine like bright glass beads, and he sits up jauntily on his hind quarters, with his little tail thrown over his back like a ruffle.

And where does he live?  Well, “that is telling,” as we children say.  It was somewhere up in the mountains of Berkshire, in a queer, quaint, old-fashioned garden, that I made Mr. Whiskey’s acquaintance.

Here there lives a young parson, who preaches every Sunday in a little brown church, and during week-days goes through all these hills and valleys, visiting the poor, and gathering children into Sunday schools.

His wife is a very small-sized lady—not much bigger than you, my little Mary—but very fond of all sorts of dumb animals; and by constantly watching their actions and ways, she has come to have quite a strange power over them, as I shall relate.

The little lady fixed her mind on Whiskey, and gave him his name without consulting him upon the subject.  She admired his bright eyes, and resolved to cultivate his acquaintance.

By constant watching, she discovered that he had a small hole of his own in the grass-plot a few paces from her back-door.  So she used to fill her pocket with hazel-nuts, and go out and sit in the back porch, and make a little noise, such as squirrels make to each other, to attract his attention.

In a minute or two up would pop the little head with the bright eyes, in the grass-plot, and Master Whiskey would sit on his haunches and listen, with one small ear cocked towards her.  Then she would throw him a hazel-nut, and he would slip instantly down into his hole again.  In a minute or two, however, his curiosity would get the better of his prudence; and she, sitting quiet, would see the little brown-striped head slowly, slowly coming up again, over the tiny green spikes of the grass-plot.  Quick as a flash he would dart at the nut, whisk it into a little bag on one side of his jaws, which Madam Nature has furnished him with for his provision-pouch, and down into his hole again.  An ungrateful, suspicious little brute he was too; for though in this way he bagged and carried off nut after nut, until the patient little woman had used up a pound of hazel-nuts, still he seemed to have the same wild fright at sight of her, and would whisk off and hide himself in his hole the moment she appeared.  In vain she called, “Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey,” in the most flattering tones; in vain she coaxed and cajoled.  No, no; he was not to be caught napping.  He had no objection to accepting her nuts, as many as she chose to throw to him; but as to her taking any personal liberty with him, you see, it was by no means to be thought of.

But at last patience and perseverance began to have their reward.  Little Master Whiskey said to himself, “Surely this is a nice, kind lady, to take so much pains to give me nuts; she is certainly very considerate;” and with that he edged a little nearer and nearer every day, until, quite to the delight of the small lady, he would come and climb into her lap and seize the nuts, when she rattled them there, and after that he seemed to make exploring voyages all over her person.  He would climb up and sit on her shoulder; he would mount and perch himself on her head; and when she held a nut for him between her teeth, he would take it out of her mouth.

After a while he began to make tours of discovery in the house.  He would suddenly appear on the minister’s writing-table when he was composing his Sunday sermon, and sit cocking his little pert head at him, seeming to wonder what he was about.  But in all his explorations he proved himself a true Yankee squirrel, having always a shrewd eye on the main chance.  If the parson dropped a nut on the floor, down went Whiskey after it, and into his provision-bag it went, and then he would look up as if he expected another; for he had a wallet on each side of his jaws, and he always wanted both sides handsomely filled before he made for his hole.  So busy and active and always intent on this one object was he, that before long the little lady found he had made way with six pounds of hazel-nuts.  His general rule was to carry off four nuts at a time—three being stuffed into the side-pockets of his jaws, and the fourth held in his teeth.  When he had furnished himself in this way, he would dart like lightning for his hole, and disappear in a moment; but in a short time up he would come, brisk and wide-awake, and ready for the next supply.

Once a person who had the curiosity to dig open a chipping squirrel’s hole found in it two quarts of buckwheat, a quantity of grass-seed, nearly a peck of acorns, some Indian corn, and a quart of walnuts; a pretty handsome supply for a squirrel’s winter store-room—don’t you think so?

Whiskey learned in time to work for his living in many artful ways that his young mistress devised.  Sometimes she would tie his nuts up in a paper package, which he would attack with great energy, gnawing the strings, and rustling the nuts out of the paper in wonderfully quick time.  Sometimes she would tie a nut to the end of a bit of twine and swing it backward and forward over his head; and after a succession of spry jumps, he would pounce upon it, and hang swinging on the twine, till he had gnawed the nut away.

Another squirrel, doubtless hearing of Whiskey’s good luck, began to haunt the same yard; but Whiskey would by no means allow him to cultivate his young mistress’s acquaintance.  No indeed! he evidently considered that the institution would not support two.  Sometimes he would appear to be conversing with the stranger on the most familiar and amicable terms in the back-yard; but if his mistress called his name, he would immediately start and chase his companion quite out of sight, before he came back to her.

So you see that self-seeking is not confined to men alone, and that Whiskey’s fine little fur coat covers a very selfish heart.

As winter comes on, Whiskey will go down into his hole, which has many long galleries and winding passages, and a snug little bedroom well lined with leaves.  Here he will doze and dream away his long winter months, and nibble out the inside of his store of nuts.

If I hear any more of his cunning tricks, I will tell you of them.