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Birds, Vol. III, No 1, January 1898

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<h2>THE NEW TENANTS.</h2> <hr style="width: 15%;" /> By Elanora Kinsley Marble. <hr style="width: 15%;" /> Father and mother are building a nest; They have found in Greenwood the place that is best. They are working so hard through the long summer day, Gathering grasses and hair and hay. They are so happy, for soon they will hear The eager “Peep, peep!” of their babies so dear. Dear mother, gather them safe ’neath each wing; Kind father, hasten, for food you must bring. Now mother and father will teach them to fly: “Come, timid birdies; come, try; come, try. Fly out in the Greenwood, dear birdies, with me; Then back to the nest in the dear old tree.”   Mrs. Wren was busy that morning. She had been away all winter, among the trees in the south, but was back in the old neighborhood now, getting her house in order for the summer season. Mr. Wren, with a number of other gentlemen Wrens, had arrived some weeks before and had been kept pretty busy looking about for a desirable apartment in which to set up housekeeping. Several had struck him as being just the thing, among them a gourd which one thoughtful family had set for a Chickadee. “I’ll fetch some sticks and straws and put a few in each house,” said he, with the greediness of his kind, “so the other birds will think it is rented. Mrs. Wren is so particular maybe none of them will suit her. She always wants something better than Mrs. John Wren, her cousin, and I notice Mr. John looking about in this neighborhood, too.” In the low bushes and shrubbery Mr. Wren flitted from day to day, keeping his eye on one apartment, especially, which he considered particularly fine. “I do wish she would hurry up,” he thought, anxious for Mrs. Wren to arrive. “It takes a female so long to get ready to go anywhere. I saw an impudent Blue Jay around here this morning and he may take a fancy to that apartment up there. I wouldn’t like to tackle him, and so, to let him see that it is rented, I’ll fetch a few more straws,” and off Mr. Wren flew, returning in a very little while with his bill full. Well, about the first of April Mrs. Wren arrived, quite tired with her journey, but as sprightly and talkative as ever. Mr. Wren greeted her with one of his loudest songs, and they flew about chattering and singing for quite a while. “I suppose,” said she, resting at length on the limb of a maple tree, “that you have been flying about, eating and drinking and talking with the other Mr. Wrens, and not looking for a house at all. That is the way with your sex generally, when there is any work to be done.” “Oh, it is?” said Mr. Wren, his feathers ruffled in a minute. “That’s my reward for staying about this house and the grounds all the time, is it? My whole time has been taken up in house hunting, let me tell you, Mrs. Wren, and in keeping my eye on one particular apartment which is to let up there.” “Where?” chirped Mrs. Wren, her bright eyes traveling up and down the side of the house before them. “I don’t see a box or crevice anywhere.” “Oh, you don’t?” said Mr. Wren, mimicking her tone and air, “not a single box or crevice anywhere. Who said anything about either, I’d like to know?” “Why, you did, Mr. Wren,” said Mrs. Jenny, every feather on top of her head standing on end. “You did, as plain as could be.” “I said nothing of the sort,” retorted Mr. Wren, “I never mentioned a box or crevice once.” “Then what did you say,” returned Mrs. Wren with a little cackling sort of a laugh, “what kind of a house is up there to let anyway?” “Talk about females being as sharp as we males,” muttered Mr. Wren, “I never saw so stupid a creature in my life”—then aloud, “don’t you see that tin tea-pot hanging on a nail under the porch, Mrs. Wren?” “A tin tea-pot!” scornfully. “Do you think a bird born and bred as I was would go to housekeeping in an old tea-pot, Mr. Wren? You forget, surely that my father was a——” “Oh, bother your father,” ungallantly retorted Mr. Wren. “I’m tired and sick of that subject. If you don’t like the looks of that house up there say so, and I’ll take you to see several others.” “Oh, well,” said Mrs. Wren, who all the time had thought the tea-pot just the cutest little apartment in the world, “I’ll fly up there and examine it. Maybe it will do.” “It’s just lovely,” she announced, flying back to the tree, and for a minute or two they chattered and sang, and fluttered about in such a joyful manner that some of their bird neighbors flew over, curious to hear and see. “Still,” remarked Mrs. Jenny the next day, when fetching material for the nest, “I had hoped, my dear, that you would have followed my father’s example in selecting a house for your family.” “Still harping on ‘my father,’” groaned Mr. Wren, dropping on the porch the straws he had fetched in his bill. “Well,” cheerfully, “how did he do, my dear?” “As a bird of courage would, Mr. Wren. He never looked for a vacant house, not he! From place to place, from tree to tree he flew, and when he espied a nest which pleased him, off he chased the other bird and took possession. Bluebird or Martin, it was all the same to him. Ah, indeed, my father was a great warrior.” “Hm, yes!” said Mr. Wren, who didn’t like to be thought less brave than another. “That accounted for his one eye and lame leg, I presume.” “The scars of battle are not to be laughed at, Mr. Wren,” loftily said Mrs. Jenny, “Papa’s one eye and crooked leg were objects of great pride to his family.” “The old scoundrel,” muttered Mr. Wren, who looked upon his father-in-law as no better than a robber, but to keep peace in the family he said no more, and with a gush of song flew off to gather some particularly nice sticks for the nest. For some days Mr. and Mrs. Wren were too busy to pay much attention to their neighbors. Mr. Wren, unlike some birds he knew, did not do all the singing while his mate did the work, but fetched and carried with the utmost diligence, indeed brought more sticks, Mrs. Wren told her friends, than she had any use for. “Such a litter, ma’am,” said Bridget the next morning to the mistress of the house, “as I do be afther sweepin’ up from the porch ivery day. A pair of birds, I do be thinkin’, are after building a nest in that owld tin pot on the wall. It’s this day I’m goin’ to tear it down, so I am. Birds are nuisances anyway, and it’s not Bridget O’Flaherty that’s goin’ to be clanin’ afther them, at all, at all.” “Oh don’t!” chorused the children, “we want to see with our own eyes how the birds go to housekeeping in the Spring. It’s ever so much better than just reading about it. Tell Bridget, mamma,” they pleaded, “to leave the pot alone.” Mamma, who found bird-life a delightful study, was only too willing to give the desired command, and thus it chanced that Mr. and Mrs. Wren grew quite accustomed to many pair of eyes watching them at their work of building a nest, every day. “Do you know,” said Mrs. Wren, placing a particularly fine feather in the nest one day, “that I have a notion to name our birdlings, when they come out of their shell, after our landlady’s family? I think it is not more than fair, since we have got a cute apartment and no rent to pay.” “A capital idea!” chirped Mr. Wren, “her children have such pretty names, too.” “And pretty manners,” returned Mrs. Wren, who, being of such genteel birth, was quick to recognize it in others. “Let me see, there’s just six. Pierre, Emmett, Walter, Henry, Bobby, and that darling little fair-haired girl, Dorothy. I had my head tucked under my wing the other evening, but all the same I heard her speaking a piece that she said she had learned at school that day.” “Yes,” said Mr. Wren, tilting his tail over his back and singing loudly, “I think we are very fortunate to have such a family for our neighbors. You can pick up so many things their mamma says to the children, and teach our birdies the same lessons, you know.” “Of course,” said Mrs. Wren, standing on the edge of the pot and eyeing her work with great satisfaction, “I had thought of that before. I already have some of her sayings in my mind. But come, we musn’t be standing here chattering all day. The nest must be ready to-morrow for the first egg.” “Hm! You don’t say?” replied Mr. Wren, beginning to count his toes, “why, bless me, to-morrow is the twelfth day. Well, well, how time flies when one is busy and happy,” and off they both flew, singing as they went for very joy. [to be continued.] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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