ympathy and help."

In a few minutes we heard her mate answer, and presently the two birds
came hurrying to the spot, both with loaded beaks. They perched upon the
familiar limb above the site of the nest, and the mate seemed to say,
"My dear, what has happened to you? I can find that nest." And he dived
down, and brought up in the empty air just as the mother had done. How
he winnowed it with his eager wings! How he seemed to bear on to that
blank space! His mate sat regarding him intently, confident, I think,
that he would find the clue. But he did not. Baffled and excited, he
returned to the perch beside her. Then she tried again, then he rushed
down once more, then they both assaulted the place, but it would not
give up its secret. They talked, they encouraged each other, and they
kept up the search, now one, now the other, now both together. Sometimes
they dropped down to within a few feet of the entrance to the nest,
and we thought they would surely find it. No, their minds and eyes were
intent only upon that square foot of space where the nest had been. Soon
they withdrew to a large limb many feet higher up, and seemed to say to
themselves,

"Well, it is not there, but it must be here somewhere; let us look
about." A few minutes elapsed, when we saw the mother bird spring from
her perch and go straight as an arrow to the nest. Her maternal eye had
proved the quicker. She had found her young. Something like reason and
common sense had come to her rescue; she had taken time to look about,
and behold! there was that precious doorway. She thrust her head into
it, then sent back a call to her mate, then went farther in, then
withdrew. "Yes, it is true, they are here, they are here!" Then she went
in again, gave them the food in her beak, and then gave place to her
mate, who, after similar demonstrations of joy, also gave them his
morsel.

Ted and I breathed freer. A burden had been taken from our minds and
hearts, and we went cheerfully on our way. We had learned something,
too; we had learned that when in the deep woods you think of bluebirds,
bluebirds may be nearer you than you think.

THE PRIDE OF THE REGIMENT

BY HARRY M. KIEFFER (ADAPTED)

"Old Abe" was the war-eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteers. Whoever
it may have been that first conceived the idea, it was certainly a happy
thought to make a pet of an eagle. For the eagle is our national bird,
and to carry an eagle along with the colors of a