some anxiety. He did not act as the
other humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of
sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a
disconcerting manner to begin again.

One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to
learn to fly by his parents he had done much the same sort of thing.
He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to
rest. So it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly--or
rather to walk. He mentioned this to his mate and when he told her
that the Eggs would probably conduct themselves in the same way after
they were fledged she was quite comforted and even became eagerly
interested and derived great pleasure from watching the boy over the
edge of her nest--though she always thought that the Eggs would be much
cleverer and learn more quickly. But then she said indulgently that
humans were always more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of them
never seemed really to learn to fly at all. You never met them in the
air or on tree-tops.

After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all
three of the children at times did unusual things. They would stand
under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way
which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down. They went
through these movements at intervals every day and the robin was never
able to explain to his mate what they were doing or tying to do. He
could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in
such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was
doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions
were not of a dangerous nature. Of course neither the robin nor his
mate had ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and his
exercises for making the muscles stand out like lumps. Robins are not
like human beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first
and so they develop themselves in a natural manner. If you have to fly
about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied
(atrophied means wasted away through want of use).

When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like
the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace
and content. Fears for the Eggs became things of the past. Knowing
that your Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and
the fact that you could watch