was
an owl in the house. He had the range of a great part of the house all
night, and in a very short time he had driven every mouse away. And
the first time he found a window open, he went away himself. There is
that objection to owls, as mousers. They are very good so long as they
will hold the situation, but they are exceedingly apt to leave without
giving the family any notice. You won't find a cat doing that. The
trouble with her very often is that she will not go when you give
_her_ notice to leave.

When we speak of our feathered friends, it is hardly fair to exclude
all but those which are domesticated with us, or which are willing,
sometimes, to come and live in our houses. In the country, and very
often in towns, our homes are surrounded, at certain seasons, by
beautiful birds, that flutter and twitter about in the trees, and sing
most charmingly in the bright hours of the early morning, making the
spring-time and the summer tenfold more delightful than they would be
without them. These birds ask nothing of us but a few cherries or
berries now and then, and they pay well for these by picking up the
worms and grubs from our gardens.

I think that these little warblers and twitterers, who fill the air
with their songs and frolic about on the trees and bushes, who build
their nests under our eaves and in any little box that we may put up
for them, who come regularly back to us every spring, although they
may have been hundreds of miles away during the cold weather, and who
have chosen, of their own accord, to live around our houses and to
sing in our trees and bushes, ought to be called our friends, as much
as the fowls in our poultry-yards.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

IN A WELL.

Perhaps very few of you have ever seen such an old-fashioned well as
this. No pump, no windlass, no arrangement that you are apt to call at
all convenient for raising the water. Nothing but that upright stake,
on top of which moves a long pole, with the bucket hanging from one
end of it. But the artist does not show in the picture the most
important part of this arrangement. On the other end of this long pole
a heavy stone is fastened, and it is easy to see that a bucket of
water may be raised without much trouble, with the stone bearing down
the other end of the pole. To be sure, the stone must be raised when
the bucket is lowered, but that is done by pulling downward on the
rope, which is not so hard as to haul a