d build such nests as the
swallow'"]

"I notice there are a great many chicken feathers in the barnyard. I
shall line my nest with the softest, fluffiest feathers that I can find
there.

"By and bye my little mate will sit in the dear clay nest and over four
or five or possibly six little eggs."

"I shall never be able to see them," sighed Phyllis. "They are up so
high. Tell me about them."

"Oh, my eggs are beautiful," said the swallow. "They are white with
just a little rose tint. They are spotted with fine dots of brown and
purple, and are about three-quarters of an inch long.

"We shall probably have three broods of birdlings this summer. What a
happy, happy time we shall have!"

All this time the swallow was darting and wheeling and circling about
Phyllis in a most graceful manner.

"Are you never still?" asked Phyllis, at last. "I do not believe you
even stop to eat."

"I do not," said the swallow, darting after a big blue fly. "I eat on
the fly." And then he burst into a giggling twitter.

"I catch nearly all my food on the wing. No one can complain--as they
do of the robin--of our destroying fruit.

"We do not care for fruit at all. I would rather have a dozen nice fat
flies than all the cherries in the world!"

"Well," laughed Phyllis, "I'd rather have a dozen ripe cherries than
all the flies in the world!"

"Tastes differ," twittered the swallow.

THE SWALLOWS

Once upon a time some Eskimo children were playing in the wet clay by
the seashore. They were making tiny toy houses of the clay. These
houses they fastened high on the face of the cliff.

The children chattered and laughed. They ran gaily to and fro in their
happy play.

The people of the village heard their merry voices. Their busy mother
paused with her long bone needle between her fingers. She looked up
and smiled at her little ones.

"How happy my children are to-day!" she said, and she hummed a little
tune to herself.

"They are very wise children!" said a neighbour. "They say so many
wonderful things. Indeed, they seem to know more of some things than
even the wise men of the village!"

"Yes, they are quite wonderful," said the mother. "I sometimes listen
to their chatter and watch their nimble little fingers, and I wonder
who taught them all they know."

"Oh," said another woman, "they do not seem so extraordinary to me. In
fact, they look to me like little birds, flitting about in their dark