"I used to wear a red coat and ride to the hounds fox hunting,"
he said. "It's great sport. Won't you take me with you to the
jungle?"

I didn't want him in the least, but if any one older asks right
out to go with you, what can you do? I am going to tell several
things you won't believe, and this is one of them: He got off
his horse, tied it to the fence, and climbed over after me. He
went on asking questions and of course I had to tell him. Most
of what he wanted to know, his people should have taught him
before he was ten years old, but father says they do things
differently in England.

"There doesn't seem to be many trees in the jungle."

"Well, there's one, and it's about the most important on our
land," I told him. "Father wouldn't cut it down for a farm. You
see that little dark bag nearly as big as your fist, swinging out
there on that limb? Well, every spring one of these birds,
yellow as orange peel, with velvet black wings, weaves a nest
like that, and over on that big branch, high up, one just as
bright red as the other is yellow, and the same black wings,
builds a cradle for his babies. Father says a red bird and a
yellow one keeping house in the same tree is the biggest thing
that ever happened in our family. They come every year and that
is their tree. I believe father would shoot any one who drove
them away."

"Your father is a gunner also?" he asked, and I thought he was
laughing to himself.