husband so."

Now, the reason why Mr. and Mrs. Wren liked their house and the reason
why Miss Kitty Cat didn't were one and the same: Miss Kitty couldn't get
inside it. The mouth of the syrup can, which the Wren family used for a
door, was no bigger than a quarter of a dollar. It was entirely too
small for Miss Kitty Cat, though it was big enough to admit Rusty Wren
and his plump wife.

Miss Kitty said everything she could to persuade the Wren family to
build themselves a nest in a crotch of the tree, like other birds.

"I'm sure," she told them, "you'd like such a home much better than
this. There's no reason why you shouldn't be as fashionable as everybody
else. You wouldn't have to look for a place to build. There's room
enough right in this old cherry tree for a hundred happy homes if
anybody wanted to build them."

"We like our house," Rusty Wren said.

"I wouldn't move, even if he wanted to," Mrs. Wren declared.

"Maybe you'd move because he _doesn't_ want to," Miss Kitty Cat
suggested.

But Mrs. Wren shook her head in a most decided way.

"No!" she said. "I'm satisfied with my house. And our neighbors would be
far better off if they built as we do, inside a snug sort of box."

"You'll never know what you're missing," Miss Kitty remarked, "if you
don't try an open nest sometime. Now, only yesterday I visited Jolly
Robin's family over in the orchard. And their youngsters certainly did
look beautiful. But you keep yours hidden inside that old syrup can
where nobody can see them. It's a shame that the public can't have a
chance to admire such fine nestlings as you must have in there."

Miss Kitty Cat was sitting under the cherry tree. And she looked up and
smiled most agreeably at Mrs. Wren.

Rusty Wren looked thoughtful.

"There's something in what she says," he whispered to his wife. "It is
too bad not to let the neighbors admire the finest nestlings in Pleasant
Valley."

"You know they say a cat may look at a king," Miss Kitty simpered.
"Well, a fortnight ago I went over to the pine woods and had a look at a
Ruby Crowned Kinglet's family. So it seems only fair that I shouldn't
be denied a look at your little wrenlets."

XII

JOLLY ROBIN'S NEWS

IN A WAY Miss Kitty Cat was a patient creature. She could play a waiting
game. She spent hours watching rat-holes without growing restless.

So after her talk with Rusty Wren and his wife, when she urged them to
give up their boxlike house and