little. My mother did not think they were ever still a minute.
Constantly hopping back and forth, first on one bough, then on another,
flirting down between times to pick up a cricket or a bug, they were
indeed, a most fidgetty set. Their restlessness extended even to their
handsome top-knots, which they jerked up and down like a questioning
eyebrow. They were beautiful to look at had they only possessed a
little of the dignity and composure of our family. But as I said, we
little ones did not trouble ourselves about them.

The air was so pleasant, our nest so cozy, and our parents provided us
such a plentiful diet of nice worms and bugs, that like other
thoughtless babies who have nothing to do but eat, sleep, and grow, we
had no interest in things outside and did not dream there was such a
thing as vexation or sorrow or crime in this beautiful world. When our
parents were off gathering our food, we seldom felt lonely, for we
nestled snugly and kept each other company by telling what we would do
when we should be strong enough to fly.

At this stage of our existence we were as ungainly a lot of children as
could well be imagined. To look at our long, scrawny necks and big
heads so disproportioned to the size of our bodies, which were scantily
covered with a fuzzy down that scarcely concealed our nakedness, who
would have thought that in time we would develop into such handsome
birds as the bobolink family is universally considered to be?

Our mother, who was both very proud and very fond of us, was untiring
in her watchful care. No human mother bending over the nursery bed
soothing her little one to rest, showed more devotion than did she, as
she hovered near the tiny cradle of coarse grass and leaves woven by
her own cunning skill--alert and sleepless when danger was near and