fruit
clean
thirst´-y
wheat
throw

1. 'Mother,' cried Harry, running in one day, 'Jack Denny says he shoots
sparrows!'

'I am very sorry to hear it. Why does he shoot them?'

'"They steal fruit and corn," he says. He wanted me to throw stones at
them!'

2. 'Well, you can tell him about some silly men who killed the sparrows
and other birds, and the next year their fruit and corn were eaten up by
grubs. Even the leaves on the trees were eaten.'

3. 'Is this true?'

'Quite true. They had to send for little birds from other places to live
in their fields and gardens. Do you know that a sparrow kills four
thousand grubs in one day when her babies are in the nest?

4. 'One wise man who grows fruit says that his best friends are the
sparrows, and he makes holes in the garden-walls for them to build in.
Their sharp eyes see the tiny things that would spoil the fruit, and
their sharp beaks nip them up at once.

[Illustration]