old apple-tree because
they had discovered that there was just room enough between those
spreading roots for them to pass in and out, and there wasn't room to
dig the entrance any larger. So they felt quite safe from Reddy Fox; and
Bowser the Hound, either of whom would have delighted to dig them out
but for those roots.

Right in front of their doorway was a very nice doorstep of shining
sand where Johnny Chuck delighted to sit when he had a full stomach and
nothing else to do. Johnny's nearest neighbors had made their home only
about five feet above Johnny's head when he sat up on his doorstep. They
were Skimmer the Tree Swallow and his trim little wife, and the doorway
of their home was a little round hole in the trunk of that apple-tree, a
hole which had been cut some years before by one of the Woodpeckers.

Johnny and Skimmer were the best of friends. Johnny used to delight in
watching Skimmer dart out from beneath the branches of the trees and
wheel and turn and glide, now sometimes high in the blue, blue sky, and
again just skimming the tops of the grass, on wings which seemed never
to tire. But he liked still better the bits of gossip when Skimmer would
sit in his doorway and chat about his neighbors of the Old Orchard and
his adventures out in the Great World during his long journeys to and
from the far-away South.

To Johnny Chuck's way of thinking, there was no one quite so trim and
neat appearing as Skimmer with his snowy white breast and blue-green
back and wings. Two things Johnny always used to wonder at, Skimmer's
small bill and short legs. Finally he ventured to ask Skimmer about
them.

"Gracious, Johnny!" exclaimed Skimmer. "I wouldn't have a big bill for
anything. I wouldn't know what to do with it; it would be in the
way. You see, I get nearly all my food in the air when I am flying,
mosquitoes and flies and all sorts of small insects with wings. I don't
have to pick them off trees and bushes or from the ground and so I don't
need any more of a bill than I have. It's the same way with my legs.
Have you ever seen me walking on the ground?"

Johnny thought a moment. "No," said he, "now you speak of it, I never
have."

"And have you ever seen me hopping about in the branches of a tree?"
persisted Skimmer.

Again Johnny Chuck admitted that he never had.

"The only use I have for feet," continued Skimmer, "is for perching
while I rest. I don't need long legs for walking or hopping about, so
Mo