beyed. Not one of them questioned, "Why, Mother?" or
whined, "I don't want to," or whimpered, "I'm frightened," or boasted,
"Pooh, there's nothing here."

Dot led the crouching enemy away by fluttering as if she had a broken
wing, and she called for help with all the agony of her mother-love.
"Pete," she cried, "Pete," and "Pete, Pete, Pete!"

No one who hears the wail of a frightened sandpiper begging protection
for her young can sit unmoved.

Someone at the Ledge House heard Dot, and gave a low whistle and a quick
command. Then there was a dashing rush through the bushes, that sounded
as if a dog were chasing a cat. A few minutes later Dot's voice again
called in the dark--this time, not in anguish of heart, but very cosily
and gently. "Pete-weet?" she whispered; and four precious little babies
murmured, "Peep," as they snuggled close to the spotted breast of their
mother.

So it happened that two sons and two daughters of Peter Piper, Junior,
played and picnicked and bathed by the river. The one who had first
pipped his eggshell was named Peter the Third, for his father and his
grandfather, and a finer young sandpiper never shook the fluff of down
from his head or the fringe from his tail, when his real feathers pushed
into their places.

What his brother and sisters were named, I never knew; and it didn't
matter much, for their mother called them all "Pete."

[Illustration: _Dallying happily along the river-edge._]

Peter the Third and the others grew up as Pan and Peter and Sandy had
grown, dallying happily along the river-edge, and as happily accepting
the guidance of their mother, who made her slow flight from Faraway
Island every now and then, usually so low that her spotted breast was
reflected in the clear water as she came, the white markings in her
wings showing above and below.

Of course, as soon as the season came for their migration journey, the
four of them started cheerfully off with Peter and Dot, for a leisurely
little flight to Brazil and back--to fill the days, as it were, with
pleasant wanderings, from the time the hummingbird fed at the feast of
the cardinal flower in late summer, until he should be hovering over the
columbine in the spring.

IV

GAVIA OF IMMER LAKE

Once upon a time, it was four millions of years ago. There were no
people then all the way from Florida to Alaska. There was, indeed, in
all this distance, no land to walk upon, except islands in the west
where