y did you ever leave it?"

Jenny Wren's bright eyes snapped. "Why do you eat?" she asked tartly.

"Because I'm hungry," replied Peter promptly.

"What would you eat if there were nothing to eat?" snapped Jenny.

"That's a silly question," retorted Peter.

"No more silly than asking me why I leave the Old Orchard," replied
Jenny. "Do give us birds credit for a little common sense, Peter. We
can't live without eating any more than you can, and in winter there is
no food at all here for most of us, so we go where there is food. Those
who are lucky enough to eat the kinds of food that can be found here in
winter stay here. They are lucky. That's what they are--lucky. Still--"
Jenny Wren paused.

"Still what?" prompted Peter.

"I wonder sometimes if you folks who are at home all the time know just
what a blessed place home is," replied Jenny. "It is only six months
since we went south, but I said it seems ages, and it does. The best
part of going away is coming home. I don't care if that does sound
rather mixed; it is true just the same. It isn't home down there in the
sunny South, even if we do spend as much time there as we do here. THIS
is home, and there's no place like it! What's that, Mr. Wren? I haven't
seen all the Great World? Perhaps I haven't, but I've seen enough of it,
let me tell you that! Anyone who travels a thousand miles twice a year
as we do has a right to express an opinion, especially if they have used
their eyes as I have mine. There is no place like home, and you needn't
try to tease me by pretending that there is. My dear, I know you; you
are just as tickled to be back here as I am."

"He sings as if he were," said Peter, for all the time Mr. Wren was
singing with all his might.

Jenny Wren looked over at Mr. Wren fondly. "Isn't he a dear to sing to
me like that? And isn't it a perfectly beautiful spring song?" said she.
Then, without waiting for Peter to reply, her tongue rattled on. "I do
wish he would be careful. Sometimes I am afraid he will overdo. Just
look at him now! He is singing so hard that he is shaking all over. He
always is that way. There is one thing true about us Wrens, and this is
that when we do things we do them with all our might. When we work
we work with all our might. When Mr. Wren sings he sings with all his
might."

"And, when you scold you scold with all your might," interrupted Peter
mischievously.

Jenny Wren opened her mouth for a sharp reply, but laughed ins