reat golden butterfly rose before them
from a bed of lilies, and together he and Brutus ran after it; not to
capture and kill it, oh no! for to John the wonder of the flower with
wings lay in the life which gave it power to move about and pay calls
upon the other blossoms that must be always stay-at-homes. John chased
it gaily, as one brother plays with another. And when it lighted on a
rose-bush or a yellow broom-flower, or poised on a swaying blade of
grass, he crept up and admired its lovely colors without touching the
fragile thing. But at last, as if suddenly remembering an errand which
it had forgotten, the butterfly soared quickly up and away over the
treetops and out of sight.

"Good-by, little brother!" called John after it. "I wish I could fly
as you do and look down upon the kingdom of the forest! Then indeed I
would learn all the secrets of our friends up in the treetops there,
who hide their nests so selfishly. Oh, I should so love to see all the
little baby birds! To be sure, some that I have seen in the
ground-nests are ugly enough. Oh, the big mouths of them! Oh, the
bald skins and prickly pin-feathers! Ha! ha!" John laughed so
heartily that Brutus came running up to see what the joke was. "O
Brutus!" cried John. "I think I know why the father and mother birds
build their nests so high. They are ashamed to have any one see their
funny little ones before they are quite dressed!"

Brutus looked up in John's face and seemed to smile. The boy and the
dog often had talks together in this wise.

"I think I will ask them," said John. "Now, Brutus, lie still." He
gave a peculiar whistle, waited a moment, and repeated it, twice,
thrice. At the first call there was a fluttering in the branches
overhead. At the second call one saw the silhouettes of tiny bodies
dropping from branch to branch ever nearer to the boy below. At the
third, there was a flutter, a rush of wings, and a flock of dear little
birds came flying to John's shoulder, to his out-stretched arms, to his
head; so that presently he looked like a green bush which they had
chosen for their perch.

John talked with them in his own way, with chirps and lisping of the
lips, and they were no more afraid of him than of a good-natured tree.
But after a while, a fly, which had been tickling Brutus's nose, grew
so impertinent that the poor dog had to punish him with his paw. At
the sudden movement the birds fluttered away, and John look