other. He was alert to the tips of his toes, and
excited, as if the whole world was thirsting for the life of those
frowzy-headed youngsters in the maple. His manner intimated that nobody
ever had birdlings before; indeed, that there never had been, or could
be, just such a production as that young family behind the leaves. While
they were there, he flirted his tail, jerked himself around, crest
standing sharply up, and in every way showed his sense of importance and
responsibility.

As for the young ones, after they had been hopping about the branches a
week or so, and papa had grown less madly anxious if one looked at them,
they appeared bright and spirited, dressed in the subdued and tasteful
hues of their mother, with pert little crests and dark beaks. They were
not allowed on the grass, and they waited patiently on the tree while
their provider shelled a kernel and took it up to them. The cardinal
baby I found to be a self-respecting individual, who generally waits in
patience his parents' pleasure, though he is not too often fed. He is
not bumptious nor self-assertive, like many others; he rarely teases,
and is altogether a well-mannered and proper young person. After a
while, as the youngsters learned strength and speed on the wing, they
came to the table with the grown-ups, and then I saw there were three
spruce young redbirds, all under the care of their gorgeous papa.

No sooner did they appear on the ground than trouble began with the
English-sparrow tribe. The grievance of these birds was that they could
not manage the tough kernels. They were just as hungry as anybody, and
just as well-disposed toward corn, but they had not sufficient strength
of beak to break it. They did not, however, go without corn, for all
that. Their game was the not uncommon one of availing themselves of the
labor of others; they invited themselves to everybody's breakfast-table,
though, to be sure, they had to watch their chances in order to secure a
morsel, and escape the wrath of the owner thereof.

The cardinal was at first a specially easy victim to this plot. He took
the whole matter most solemnly, and was so absorbed in the work, that if
a bit dropped, in the process of separating it from the shell, as often
happened, he did not concern himself about it till he had finished what
he had in his mouth, and then he turned one great eye on the ground, for
the fragments which had long before been snatched by sparrows and gone
down