the
Bob Whites watched the movements of the boys with some anxiety. "They
might, you know," whispered Mrs. Bob, "be after that brood of our
cousin's beyond the brook; but no, they've stopped--they are throwing
something into the water, and there's that good-for-nothing Nip with
them, so we may go back to the nest." But they did not go, for there
was that pert Jennie Wren fluttering about, as bold as anything,
actually peeping into the bait gourd, and, goodness gracious! she has
stolen a worm and flown off with it; what impudence! And listen,
there's Cardinal Grosbeak singing to them,--

"Boys, boys, boys,
Do, do, do
Fish a little deeper."

There he is, just a little above them, upon the hackberry; now he's
flown to that willow; he looks like a coal of fire, there among the
green leaves. Now he begins again with his--

"Boys, boys, boys,
Do, do, do."

"The song may do well enough, but we don't approve of such forward
ways," sighed Mrs. Bob. "No," chimed in Mrs. Mate Hare, limping from
her home in the broom sedge. "It's not safe, with that horrid little
Nip so near; to be sure, they've got wings, but as for me, he just
frightens the life out of me, with his nosing and sniffing; forever
nosing and sniffing after some mischief." And she wiggled her nose and
ears and looked so funny that the Bob Whites almost laughed in her
face.

Before long there was a little white egg in the nest, and Bob White
was so proud of it that he just stood upon the fences and called, "Bob
White, Bob White, Bob White," all day long. And the boys who lived
over yonder at the farmhouse said, "Listen to the Bob White, he's got
a nest over there in the wheat." "Let him alone," said the farmer;
"there'll be good shooting over there by and by." But Bob White had no
thoughts to spare for by-and-bys. The blue June sky and the rustling
wheat, the wild roses, and that little egg lying there in the nest
were enough for him. So he just turned his round breast to the
sunshine, and called "Bob White" louder than ever.

After a while, when the nest was full of eggs, the Bob Whites would
creep through the wheat and whisper of the little ones that would soon
be coming. "They'll be here by the time the wheat is ripe," says Bob.
"It'll be fine feeding for them," replies Mrs. Bob. They never thought
of the reapers with their sharp scythes, and of the noise and
tramping, where all was now so peaceful.

While Mrs. Bob sat upon he