SANCTUARY 289 



kept them from starvation, you'll say to yourself, 



** 'Those are my birds!' 



** And it wouldn't be healthy for any one you saw 

 approaching with a gun. 



*'^^en you see little birds, in the heat of a 

 scorching day in summer, cooling their parched 

 throats and laving their dusty feathers in a bird- 

 bath that you've built, you'll say to yourself, 



* ' ' Those are my birds, too ! ' 



''When, some spring day, you hear the faint 

 'peep' of a newly hatched Chickadee or Bluebird 

 from a nesting-box that you've made with your 

 own hands and put up yourself, you '11 feel pretty 

 much as if they belong to you, as if they were your 

 own home folks, and woe betide the cat which 

 would come near that nesting-box, eh ? 



"Every boy hasn't the same chance as you, 

 Shan, to build up a big Bird Sanctuary in the for- 

 est, but every boy, if he wants to, can tind some 

 green corner that he can make his own; can do 

 some one of these three things to bring the proud 

 words to his lips, over and over again, winter as 

 well as summer, 



"' Those are my birds ! Mine!'*' 



