stress, often show the strongest attachment to
those children who are the most worthless in mind and body, and the
least deserving of their affection.

Well! thanks to my dear mother's care, I got through my infancy pretty
well, though I am still much smaller than the rest of my family. But if
you could have seen my poor brother Softsides! oh, he was a noble
animal! Will you believe it? he was nearly twice my size, and such a
runner and leaper! He made nothing of jumping up to our nest at one
bound, without taking the trouble to climb up in the usual way. But I
must leave Softsides for the present, and tell you what sort of a house
our careful mother had provided for us.

It was built on the top of a thistle at a little distance from the
ground, and was nicely sheltered from the wind and rain by a high close
hedge. It was as round as a ball, and was made entirely of the blades
of grass and small straws, carefully woven together like basket-work,
while the inside was as smooth and warm as possible; for there was only
one very small opening, and even that was closed at night, and in the
daytime when the weather was cold. A most delightfully warm, snug house
it was, I assure you; but as we increased in size, it became rather too
small for us, and, as I have already mentioned, we sometimes squabbled
a little for want of room. Indeed I once heard mamma saying to herself,
when she thought we were all asleep, "Well, if I had known that I
should have had such a large family I would have built a bigger house."
Now you must know that she was only one year old herself, and we were
her first brood of young ones. But though this was the first nest she
had ever made, she had shown great judgment in choosing a situation,
which was not, as is usually the case with our tribe, in a corn-field,
where both the nests and the inhabitants are often destroyed by the
reapers. Fearful of this dreadful disaster, our mother had built her
nest on a grassy bank, in an unfrequented meadow, in which there was no
public path, and where a few quiet sheep were our only companions. The
field adjoining ours was a wheat-field, and so we had an abundant
supply of food on the other side of the hedge.

For the first week or two we never left the nest; but mamma soon began
to feed us with seeds, and when our teeth were too weak to nibble hard
grains, she brought us the soft, unripe wheat, which was delicious
juicy food for tender infants.

Never shall I for