ght he
would paint this picture, and name it "Feeding Her Birds."

See how the mother tips forward on the stool as she bends toward the
three children. That is a wooden spoon she holds in her hand, and it
is full of hot broth from the bowl in her lap. The children seem to
be very hungry. No doubt they have been playing hard all the morning.

It is easy to see with what the little girl at the left-hand side of
the picture has been playing. She holds her wooden doll very close,
and loves it just as much as if it were china and had real hair as
your own doll has. She is the eldest of the children, and you can see
she is unselfish because she sits patiently by while her baby brother
and little sister get the first taste of the delicious broth.

The boy and the younger girl must have been playing with the basket
and cart you see in the picture, for the basket is overturned as if it
had been dropped in a hurry when the mother came to the door with the
broth. Now the playthings are quite forgotten.

The boy opens his mouth wide as he leans forward for the first taste,
while the little sister puts her arm around him to hold him steady. As
she watches him, she opens her mouth, too.

See the hen running toward them! She thinks there will surely be
something for her to eat, too.

The three children wear long aprons all alike, and the queer wooden
shoes that the peasants always wore in those days. What a clatter
those wooden shoes must have made even when the children played in
the yard! And what a noise they made on the wooden floors in the house
unless the children walked very carefully!

The girls wear bonnets tied with string, while the boy has a cap that
looks very much like a tam-o'-shanter, except that it, too, is tied
under his chin. The mother wears a handkerchief on her head and
another round her neck. Her dress looks thick and warm, and so do the
children's dresses. It must be a cool day, for even the doll is
wrapped in a shawl.

The man behind the house is working busily in the garden. Millet must
have thought of himself when he painted this man, for, like the father
bird, he must work hard to get enough food for his family. Sometimes
there was very little, and the bread had to be divided into such tiny
pieces that the children were still hungry when they had eaten their
share.

We know it must be about noon because the shadows in the picture are
so short. What a nice big yard these children had to play in, a