BIRD STORIES 



pair who had built where a ladder could be placed. So 

 bad luck had come not only to Eve and Petro, but to 

 the story of their Uves. 



But, most of all, the breaking of their nest brought bad 

 luck to That Boy, himself. For as he stood at the top of 

 the ladder, he might have curved the hollow of his hand 

 gently upon the rounded outside of the nest and, waiting 

 quietly, have watched the building birds. He might 

 have seen Eve come flitting home with her tiny load of 

 clay, poking it out of her mouth with her tongue and 

 bunting it smooth in her own cunning way. He might 

 have laid his head against the ladder and heard their 

 cosy voices as they squeaked pleasantly together over the 

 home-building. He might have looked at the colors of 

 their feathers, and seen where they were glossy black 

 with a greenish sheen, where rich purply chestnut, and 

 where grayish white. He might have looked well at the 

 pale feather moon on their foreheads, which the man 

 named Say had noticed one hundred years before. He 

 might, oh, he might have become one of the brotherhood 

 of men, whom swallows of one kind or another have 

 trusted since the far-off years of Bible times when they 

 built at the altars of the Lord of Hosts. 



All this good luck he held. That Boy, in the hollow of 

 his hand, and he threw it away when he struck the nest; 

 and it fell, crumbled, with the broken bits of clay. 



80 



