faint cries of his shell-incased babies!

With a wild scream he made a flying leap through the air. His
heart was beating to suffocation. He started in a race down the
river. If he alighted on a bush he took only one swing, and
springing from it flamed on in headlong flight. He flashed to
the top of the tallest tulip tree, and cried cloudward to the
lark: "See here! See here!" He dashed to the river bank and told
the killdeers, and then visited the underbrush and informed the
thrushes and wood robins. Father-tender, he grew so delirious
with joy that he forgot his habitual aloofness, and fraternized
with every bird beside the shining river. He even laid aside his
customary caution, went chipping into the sumac, and caressed his
mate so boisterously she gazed at him severely and gave his wing
a savage pull to recall him to his sober senses.

That night the Cardinal slept in the sumac, very close to his
mate, and he shut only one eye at a time. Early in the morning,
when he carried her the first food, he found that she was on the
edge of the nest, dropping bits of shell outside; and creeping to
peep, he saw the tiniest coral baby, with closed eyes, and little
patches of soft silky down. Its beak was wide open, and though
his heart was even fuller than on the previous day, the Cardinal
knew what that meant; and instead of indulging in another
celebration, he assumed the duties of paternity, and began
searching for food, for now there were two empty crops in his
family. On the following day there were four. Then he really
worked. How eagerly he searched, and how gladly he flew to the
sumac with every rare morsel! The babies were too small for the
mother to leave; and for the first few days the Cardinal was