you?"

Freckles dropped to the trail. The hen darted to the nest and settled on
it with a tender, coddling movement. He of the yellow coat flew to the
edge to make sure that everything was right. It would have been plain to
the veriest novice that they were partners in that cradle.

"Well, I'll be switched!" muttered Freckles. "If that ain't both their
nest! And he's yellow and she's green, or she's yellow and he's green.
Of course, I don't know, and I haven't any way to find out, but it's
plain as the nose on your face that they are both ready to be fighting
for that nest, so, of course, they belong. Doesn't that beat you? Say,
that's what's been sticking me all of this week on that grass nest in
the thorn tree down the line. One day a blue bird is setting, so I think
it is hers. The next day a brown bird is on, and I chase it off because
the nest is blue's. Next day the brown bird is on again, and I let her
be, because I think it must be hers. Next day, be golly, blue's on, and
off I send her because it's brown's; and now, I bet my hat, it's both
their nest and I've only been bothering them and making a big fool of
mesilf. Pretty specimen I am, pretending to be a friend to the birds,
and so blamed ignorant I don't know which ones go in pairs, and blue and
brown are a pair, of course, if yellow and green are--and there's the
red birds! I never thought of them! He's red and she's gray--and now
I want to be knowing, are they all different? Why no! Of course, they
ain't! There's the jays all blue, and the crows all black."

The tide of Freckles' discontent welled until he almost choked with
anger and chagrin. He plodded down the trail, scowling blackly and
viciously spanging the wire. At the finches' nest he left the line
and peered into the thorn tree. There was no bird brooding. He pressed
closer to take a peep at the snowy, spotless little eggs he had found so
beautiful, when at the slight noise up raised four tiny baby heads with
wide-open mouths, uttering hunger cries. Freckles stepped back. The
brown bird alighted on the edge and closed one cavity with a wiggling
green worm, while not two minutes later the blue filled another with
a white. That settled it. The blue and brown were mates. Once again
Freckles repeated his "How I wish I knew!"

Around the bridge spanning Sleepy Snake Creek the swale spread widely,
the timber was scattering, and willows, rushes, marsh-grass, and
splendid wild flowers grew abundantly