At last, there was a moment of gossip and then
silence on every floor. There seemed to be a night-watch in the
lower hall, and if any green young bird were late and noisy going
up to his home, he got a shaking and probably lost a few feathers
from the nape of his neck. Long before daybreak those hungry,
half-clad little people of the nests began to worry and crowd their
mothers. At first, the old birds tried to quiet them with
caressing movements, and had, at last, to hold their places with
bill and claw. As light came an old cock peered about him,
stretched his wings, climbed a stairway, and blew his trumpet on
the outer wall. The robin's day had begun.

Mid-autumn, when its people shivered and found fault and talked of
moving, the maple tried to please them with new and brighter
colours--gold, with the warmth of summer in its look; scarlet,
suggesting love and the June roses. Soon it stood bare and
deserted. Then what was there in the creak-and-whisper chorus of
the old tree for one listening in the night? Belike it might be
many things, according to the ear, but was it not often something
to make one think of that solemn message: "Man that is born of a
woman is of few days and full of trouble"? They who lived in that
small house under the tree knew little of all that passed in the
big world. Trumpet blasts of fame, thunder of rise and downfall,
came faintly to them. There the delights of art and luxury were
unknown. Yet those simple folk were acquainted with pleasure and
even with thrilling and impressive incidents. Field and garden
teemed with eventful life and hard by was the great city of the
woods.

XXII

Comedies of Field and Dooryard

Trove was three days in Brier Dale after he came out of the woods.
The filly was now a sleek and shapely animal, past three years of
age. He began at once breaking her to the saddle, and, that done,
mounting, he started for Robin's Inn. He carried a game rooster in
a sack for the boy Tom. All came out with a word of welcome; even
the small dog grew noisy with delight Tunk Hosely, who had come to
work for Mrs. Vaughn, took the mare and led her away, his shoulder
leaning with an added sense of horsemanship. Polly began to hurry
dinner, fussing with the table, and changing the position of every
dish, until it seemed as if she would never be quite satisfied.
Covered with the sacred old china and table-linen of her
grandmother, it had, when Polly was done