get up? I have five little birds; they came out of the shells this
very morning, so hungry that I can't get enough for them to eat! Why
don't you get up, I say? I have five little birds, and I am taking
care of them while my wife is off taking a rest!"

They were five scrawny, skinny little things, I must say; for you know
birds don't begin by being pretty like kittens and chickens, but look
very bare and naked, and don't seem to have anything to show but a
big, big mouth which is always opening and crying "Yip, yip, yip!"

Now I think you are wondering why I happen to have this nest, and how
I could have taken away the beautiful house from the birds. Ah, that
is the sad part of the story, and I wish I need not tell it to you.

When the baby birds were two days old, I went out on a long ride into
the country, leaving everything safe and happy in the old green
willow-tree; but when I came back, what do you think I found on the
ground under the branches?----A wonderful hang-bird's nest cut from
the tree, and five poor still birdies lying by its side. Five slender
necks all limp and lifeless,--five pairs of bright eyes shut forever!
and overhead the poor mamma and papa twittering and crying in the way
little birds have when they are frightened and sorry--flying here and
there, first down to the ground and then up in the tree, to see if it
was really true.

While I was gone two naughty boys had come into the garden to dig for
angle-worms, and all at once they spied the oriole's nest.

"O Tommy, here's a hang-bird's nest, such a funny one! there's nobody
here, let's get it," cried Jack.