EVE AND PETRO 



Bad luck it brought to a writer of bird stories; and 

 when she knew what had happened, something hke an 

 ache in her throat seemed to choke her, something that 

 is called anger — the kind that comes when harm is done 

 to little folk we love. For she had climbed the ladder 

 many a time, and had rested her head against the top 

 while she watched Eve and Petro push the pellets of 

 mud from their mouths with their tongues and bunt the 

 wall of their clay nest smooth on the inside with the top 

 of their closed beaks, not stopping even though they 

 brushed their pretty chestnut-colored cheeks against the 

 sticky mud, or got specks on the feathers of their dainty 

 foreheads that bore a mark shaped like a pale new moon. 

 And she had hoped to climb the ladder many a time 

 again, and watch Eve and Petro feed their children when 

 the nest was done and lined and the eggs were laid and 

 hatched; for this nest could be looked into, as the top 

 was left open because the barn roof sheltered it and it 

 needed no other cover. 



Now Eve and Petro were gone, and no more sketches 

 could be made near enough to show how little cliff swal- 

 lows looked in their nest. And nothing more could be 

 written about such affairs of these two birds as could 

 only be learned close to them. Nor, indeed, was there 

 any way to learn those things from the rest of the col- 

 ony; for it so chanced that Eve and Petro were the only 



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