awns seemed to come in the middle of
the night. Morning after morning, not daring to trust our innocent even
with the early worm, I would slip on dressing-gown and slippers and be
out seeking him by three or four. And there, hopping across the already
heated concrete, would come skurrying an enthusiastic little
speckle-breast, flapping one wing in salutation and twittering
indignantly, "Morning! Breakfast! Morning! Breakfast!" as if he had
been up reading the newspaper for hours. He would ride trustfully on my
hand into the house, take his food and drink, and then contentedly go
to sleep again, perched, by preference, on top of a door.

But one Saturday morning I called Robin Hood in vain. The air, ringing
with bird-carols, held no music so precious as his hungry chirp.
Joy-of-Life was now a thousand miles away, but Mary and Dame Gentle
joined anxiously in the search. We were a distracted household when, at
eight, a ruddy young Audubon from the hilltop arrived, bringing in one
hand our overjoyed little truant, and in the other another fledgling
robin, with the merest beginnings of a tail--a waif picked up by the
roadside. Audubon reported that, as he was busy in his garden, a young
robin had flown down and alighted at his feet, fluttered there a moment
and raised the nestling cry for food. Happy Robin Hood, to have chosen
from all the boys of Wellesley the one wisest in benignant woodcraft!
Audubon slipped quietly to the ground, caught a caterpillar and held it
out to Robin, who came fearlessly to his hand and choked the furry
delicacy down. Then Audubon was sure that this was our famed fosterling
and, taking up the unsuspicious little fellow, hastened to bring him
down the hill to his home.

The new arrival from the greenwood, whom we dubbed Friar Tuck, promptly
belied that jovial memory. He was a wild, sullen, desperate little
outlaw, whose chirp was a metallic click and whose bill had to be pried
open before he would eat. Not even Robin Hood's hospitable chatter
could dispel his scared, defiant misery, and on the second morning,
unable to bear the look he turned up to the trees, we lifted the cage
lid and let him fly. We never, to our knowledge, saw Friar Tuck again,
and although we often listened for his uncanny chirp, it was not
heard--not even by Mary, whose imagination so expanded under these
Natural History studies that she would rush upstairs several times a
day to report all manner of rainbow-colored fowl tha