"if the birds should go away?"

"You don't remember, do you, Susie," said her mother, "how many
caterpillars there were in the village the year they tried to drive the
sparrows away?"

"I do," said Donald. "Wasn't it dreadful? Why, Uncle Robert, the leaves
were all eaten off the trees, and you could hardly take a step without
squashing a caterpillar."

"Ugh!" said Susie with a shudder. "I'm glad I was too little to remember
it."

"But the strange part of it was," said Frank, "that out here we hardly
saw a caterpillar all summer."

"And our trees were never more beautiful," said Mrs. Leonard.

"Perhaps the village sparrows came to visit you," said Uncle Robert.

"They must have," said Donald. "The woods were full of them."

"I have read," said Uncle Robert, "that some small birds eat every day
as much as their own weight in worms and insects."

"Oh, my!" said Susie. "I wonder how many worms that would be."

"The appetite of the small bird," said Mr. Leonard, looking at Donald
with a smile, "must be something like that of a small boy."