hardly have covered them snugly enough to keep them warm if they
had not been packed just so, with the pointed ends pushed down into the
middle of the rather deep nest.

The eggs were creamy white, with brown spots splashed over them--the
proper sort of eggs (if only they had been smaller) to tuck beneath a
warm breast decorated with pretty polka dots. But still, they must have
been her very own, or Dot could not have taken such good care of them.

Because of this care, day by day the little body inside each shell grew
from the wonderful single cell it started life with, to a many-celled
creature, all fitted out with lungs and a heart and rich warm blood, and
very slender legs, and very dear heads with very bright eyes, and all
the other parts it takes to make a bird. When the birds were all made,
they broke the shells and pushed aside the pieces. And four more capable
little rascals never were hatched.

Why, almost before one would think they had had time to dry their down
and stretch their legs and get used to being outside of shells instead
of inside, those little babies walked way to the edge of the river, and
from that time forth never needed their nest.

And look! the fluffy, cunning little dears are nodding their heads and
teetering their tails! Yes, that proves that they must be sandpipers,
even if we did have doubts of those eggs. Ah! Dot knew what she was
about all along. The size of her eggs might fool a person, but she had
not worried. Why, indeed, should she be troubled? Those big shells had
held food-material enough, so that her young, when hatched, were so
strong and well-developed that they could go wandering forth at once.
They did not lie huddled in their nest, helplessly begging Peter Piper
and Mother Dot to bring them food. Not they! Out they toddled, teetering
along the shore, having picnics from the first--the little gypsy babies!

Tabby did not catch any of them, though one night she tried, and gave
Dot an awful scare. It was while they were still tiny enough to be
tucked under their mother's feathers after sundown, and before they
could manage to get, stone by stone, to Nearby Island. So they were
camped on the shore, and the prowling cat came very near. So near, in
fact, that Mother Dot fluttered away from her young, calling back to
them, in a language they understood, to scatter a bit, and then lie so
still that not even the green eyes of the cat could see a motion. The
four little Pipers o