MOTHER MAGPIE'S MISCHIEF



Old Mother Magpie was about the busiest character in the forest. But
you must know that there is a great difference between being busy and
being industrious. One may be very busy all the time, and yet not in
the least industrious; and this was the case with Mother Magpie.

She was always full of everybody's business but her own--up and down,
here and there, everywhere but in her own nest, knowing everyone's
affairs, telling what everybody had been doing or ought to do, and
ready to cast her advice gratis at every bird and beast of the woods.

Now she bustled up to the parsonage at the top of the oak-tree, to
tell old Parson Too-Whit what she thought he ought to preach for his
next sermon, and how dreadful the morals of the parish were becoming.
Then, having perfectly bewildered the poor old gentleman, who was
always sleepy of a Monday morning, Mother Magpie would take a peep
into Mrs. Oriole's nest, sit chattering on a bough above, and pour
forth floods of advice, which, poor little Mrs. Oriole used to say to
her husband, bewildered her more than a hard north-east storm.

"Depend upon it, my dear," Mother Magpie would say, "that this way of
building your nest, swinging like an old empty stocking from a bough,
isn't at all the thing. I never built one so in my life, and I never
have headaches. Now you complain always that your head aches