n taking these eyesight tests you may use your spectacles if you
usually wear them.

TALE 53

The Twin Stars

Two-Bright-Eyes went wandering out
To chase the Whippoorwill;
Two-Bright-Eyes got lost and left
Our teepee--oh, so still!

Two-Bright-Eyes was carried up
To sparkle in the skies
And look like stars--but we know well
That that's our lost Bright-Eyes.

She is looking for the camp,
She would come back if she could;
She still peeps thro' the tree-tops
For the teepee in the wood.

TALE 54

Stoutheart and His Black Cravat

Do you know the bird that wears a black cravat, which he changes once a
year? It is the English Sparrow, the commonest of all our birds. His
hair is gray, but he must have been red-headed once, for just back of
his ears there is still a band of red; and his collar, maybe, was white
once, but it is very dingy now. His shirt and vest are gray; his coat is
brown with black streaks--a sort of sporting tweed. The new cravat comes
when the new feathers grow in late summer; and, at first, it is barred
with gray as if in half mourning for his sins. As the gray tips wear
off, it becomes solid black; that is, in March or April. In summer, it
gets rusty and worn out; so every year he puts on a new one in late
August.

The hen sparrow is quite different and wears no cravat. She has a
black-and-brown cape of the sporting pattern, but her dress is
everywhere of brownish Quaker gray.

The song of the English Sparrow is loud and short; but he tries to make
up, by singing it over and over again, for many minutes.

He eats many bad bugs, and would be well liked, if he did not steal the
nests and the food of Bluebirds, Woodpeckers, Swallows, and others that
are prettier and more useful birds, as well as far better singers than
he is.

But there is much to admire in the Sparrow. I do not know of any bird
that is braver, or more ready to find a way out of trouble; and if he
cannot find a way, he cheerfully makes the best of it.

Some years ago I was at Duluth during a bitterly cold spell of weather.
The thermometer registered 20 deg. or 30 deg. below zero, and the blizzard wind
was blowing. Oh my, it was cold. But out in the street were dozens of
English Sparrows chirruping and feeding; thriving just as they do in
warmer lands and in fine weather.

When black night came down, colder yet, I wondered