THE FLYING CLOWN 



and, gathering up his tools, went on his way, whisthng 

 a merry tune remembered from the days when he 

 trudged down Long-ago Lane to the pasture, for his 

 father's cows. Late of afternoon it used to be, while the 

 nighthawks dashed overhead in their air-hunts, showing 

 the white spots in their wings that looked like holes, 

 and sometimes making him jump as they dropped and 

 turned, with a sudden '^boom/' 



No sooner had the sound of his whistle gone from the 

 roof, than Mother Nomer came back to her houseless 

 home — any spot doing as well as another, now that the 

 twins were hatched and able to walk about. As she 

 called her babies to her and tucked them under her 

 feathers, her heart still beating quickly with the excite- 

 ment of her scare, it would be easy to guess from the 

 dear way of her cuddling that it is n't a beautiful woven 

 cradle or quaint walls of clay that matter most in the 

 life of young birds, but the loving care that is given 

 them. In this respect the young orioles, swinging in 

 their hammock among the swaying tips of the elm tree, 

 and the children of Eve and Petro, in their wonderful 

 brick mansion, were no better off than the twins of Mis 

 and Mother Nomer. 



Busy indeed was Mis in the twihghts that followed 

 the hatching of his children ; and, though he was as much 

 in the air as ever, it was not the fun of frolic and clown- 



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11 



