What's the matter, Archie B.?" asked the old man when he came out.

"Uncle Dave Dickey is dyin' an' maw told me to run over an' tell you
to hurry quick if you wanted to see the old man die."

"Oh, Uncle Dave is dyin', is he? Well, we'll go, Archie B., just as
soon as Ben Butler can be hooked up. I've got some more calls to make
anyway."

Ben Butler was ready by the time the children started for the mill.
Little Shiloh brought up the rear, her tiny legs bravely following
the others. Archie B. looked at them curiously as the small
wage-earners filed past him for work.

"Say, you little mill-birds," he said, "why don't you chaps come over
to see me sometimes an' lem'me show you things outdoors that's made
for boys an' girls?"

"Is they very pretty?" asked Shiloh, stopping and all ears at once.
"Oh, tell me 'bout 'em! I am jus' hungry to see 'em. I've learned
the names of three birds myself an' I saw a gray squirrel onct."

"Three birds--shucks!" said Archie B., "I could sho' you forty, but
I'll tell you what's crackin' good fun an' it'll test you mor'n
knowin' the birds--that's easy. But the hard thing is to find their
nests an' then to tell by the eggs what bird it is. That's the
cracker-jack trick."

Shiloh's eyes opened wide: "Why, do they lay eggs, Archie B.? Real
eggs like a hen or a duck?"

Archie B. laughed: "Well, I should say so--an' away up in a tree, an'
in the funniest little baskets you ever saw. An' some of the eggs is
white, an' some blue, and some green, an' some speckled an' oh, so
many kind. But I'll tell you a thing right now that'll help you to
remember--mighty nigh every bird lays a egg that's mighty nigh like
the bird herself. The cat bird's eggs is sorter blue--an' the
wood-pecker's is white, like his wing, an' the thrasher's is mottled
like his breast."

Ben Butler was hitched to the old buggy and the Bishop drove up. He
had a bunch of wild flowers for Shiloh and he gave it with a kiss.
"Run along now, Baby, an' I'll fetch you another when I come back."

They saw her run to catch up with the others and breathlessly tell
them of the wonderful things Archie B. had related. And all through
the day, in the dust and the lint, the thunder and rumble of the
Steam Thing's war, Shiloh saw white and blue and mottled eggs, in
tiny baskets, with homes up in the trees where the winds rocked the
cradles when the little birds came; and young as she was, into her
head there crept a thought that somethi