nd put
them in the cages, and then came and sat on a stool by the door. Bella,
and Billy, and Davy climbed into her lap, and I stood close by her. It
was so funny to watch those canaries. They put their heads on one side
and looked first at their little baths and then at us. They knew we were
strangers. Finally, as we were all very quiet, they got into the water;
and what a good time they had, fluttering their wings and splashing, and
cleaning themselves so nicely.

Then they got up on their perches and sat in the sun, shaking themselves
and picking at their feathers.

Miss Laura cleaned each cage, and gave each bird some mixed rape and
canary seed. I heard Carl tell her before he left not to give them much
hemp seed, for that was too fattening. He was very careful about their
food. During the summer I had often seen him taking up nice green things
to them: celery, chickweed, tender cabbage, peaches, apples, pears,
bananas; and now at Christmas time, he had green stuff growing in pots
on the window ledge.

Besides that he gave them crumbs of coarse bread, crackers, lumps of
sugar, cuttle-fish to peck at, and a number of other things. Miss Laura
did everything just as he told her; but I think she talked to the birds
more than he did. She was very particular about their drinking water,
and washed out the little glass cups that held it most carefully.

After the canaries were clean and comfortable, Miss Laura set their
cages in the sun, and turned to the goldfish. They were in large glass
globes on the window-seat. She took a long-handled tin cup, and dipped
out the fish from one into a basin of water. Then she washed the globe
thoroughly and put the fish back, and scattered wafers of fish food on
the top. The fish came up and snapped at it, and acted as if they were
glad to get it. She did each globe and then her work was over for one
morning.

She went away for a while, but every few hours through the day she ran
up to Carl's room to see how the fish and canaries were getting on. If
the room was too chilly she turned on more heat; but she did not keep it
too warm, for that would make the birds tender.

After a time the canaries got to know her, and hopped gayly around their
cages, and chirped and sang whenever they saw her coming. Then she began
to take some of them downstairs, and to let them out of their cages for
an hour or two every day. They were very happy little creatures, and
chased each other about the ro