this time; so he sat
down, and tried to make up his mind to face the dreaded duty. He heard
his uncle tell the children not to interrupt him, till he had finished
his letter; and when Mr. Preston and his man James went off to work,
Jerry accompanied them. Oscar was thus left to himself. After
thinking about the matter a few moments, he dipped his pen in the
ink-stand, and, having consulted the almanac, wrote the proper date for
the letter, together with the address, "Dear Mother." Here he came
suddenly to a stand. He was at a loss how to commence. He sat
uneasily in his chair, now nibbling the end of the pen-holder, and now
running his fingers slowly through his hair, as if to coax out the
thoughts he wished to express.

At length he got started, and wrote several lines without stopping.
Now he thought he should go ahead without further trouble; but he soon
found himself again brought to a dead halt. He began to scribble and
draw rude figures upon a piece of waste paper, hoping the next
sentence, in continuance of his letter, would soon pop into his head;
but instead of anything popping in, his ideas began to pop out, so that
he almost forgot the letter, amid the unmeaning flourishes his pen was
making. Then, suddenly thinking of the scarcely-commenced task before
him, he read and re-read the few lines he had written, but could not
determine what to say next. Lifting up the lid of the desk, he found a
variety of bills, receipts, accounts and letters scattered about.
Disregarding the injunction of his uncle, and in violation of one of
the plainest rules of good breeding, he concluded to open one of the
letters, and see if he could not gain some hint from it, to aid him in
completing his own. The letter he opened proved to be a short business
message, and it was written in such a difficult hand, that he could not
read half the words. He then looked into several other letters, but
none of them afforded him any aid.

After idling away half an hour in this manner, he resumed his letter,
and began to make some progress upon it, when the lively chirping and
twittering of a party of birds in an apple-tree near the window,
attracted his attention. He laid down his pen, and watched their
movements awhile. They were swallows; and from their actions, Oscar
soon discovered that the old birds were teaching their little ones how
to fly. There were several nests of these swallows, under the rafters
of Mr. Preston's barn