morning. Woodside was too far from the town for the children to go to
school with their cousins. When they were at home they went to a
kindergarten school, where they learned in the wisest and pleasantest
fashion.

[Illustration: TOM SHOWING THE REDBREAST'S EGGS.
_Page 29._]

The children always looked forward to the half-holidays, when they
either went up to their cousins' home, or Tom and Katey came down to
them.

One Saturday afternoon, when they went to the green, Tom showed them his
collection of birds' eggs. He kept them in shallow boxes full of bran,
so that they should not get broken, for he was very careful over them.

Tom's mother told him never to take more than one egg from each nest,
unless there were a great many, as there are in wrens' nests, so that
the mother bird might not grieve.

"Please show us a robin redbreast's egg," said little Annie.

Tom took two or three from under the bran, and showed her the eggs,
which were yellowish-gray mottled with red-brown.

"Mrs. Redbreast has not nearly so red a breast as Robin," he said.

"I suppose you have plenty of sparrows' eggs," said Mary, "they are such
common birds."