them at their work. They were too happily
busy to worry, and besides, there is a tradition that men folk and
swallow folk are friendly, each to the other.

How old this tradition is, we do not know; but we do know that swallows
of one kind and another were welcomed in the Old World in the old days
to heathen temples before there were Christian churches, and that to-day
in the New World they play in and out of the dark arches in the great
churches of far Brazil and flash across the gilding of the very
tabernacle, reminding us of the passage in the Psalms where it is
written that the swallow hath found a nest for herself, where she may
lay her young--even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts!

So it is not strange that far and wide over the world people have the
idea that swallows bring luck to the house. I think so myself, don't
you?--that it is very good fortune, indeed, to have these birds of
friendly and confiding ways beneath our shelter.

Of course the ancestors of cliff swallows had not known the walls and
roofs of man so long as other kinds of swallows; but the associations of
one short century had been pleasant enough to call forth many cheerful
squeakings of joy, just like those of Eve and Petro that pleasant day
in June when they started their nest under the roof near the top of the
ladder.

To be sure, they made no use of that ladder, even though they were
masons and had their hods of plaster to carry way up near the top of
their cliff. No, they needed no firmer ladder than the air, and their
long wings were strong enough to climb it with.

They lost little time in beginning, each coming with his first hod of
plaster. How? Balanced on their heads as some people carry burdens? No.
On their backs, then? No. In their claws? Oh, no, their feet were far
too feeble for bearing loads. Do you remember what Corbie used for a
berry-pail when he went out to pick fruit? Why, of course! the hod of
the swallow mason is none other than his mouth, and it holds as much as
half a thimbleful.

First, Eve had to mark the place where the curved edge of the nest would
be; and how could she mark it without any chalk, and how could she make
a curve without any compasses? Well, she clung to the straight wall with
her little feet, which she kept nearly in one place, and, swinging her
body about, hitch by hitch, she struck out her curve with her beak and
marked it with little dabs of plaster. Then she and Petro could tell
where to buil