44 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
Sarah Barnes, as she glanced at the deep blue sailor suit, 
with the crimson shield in front, that Goldilocks wore. 
“T’d rather be a big owl,” said Tommy Todd, “and sit 
up in a tree in the woods and call out ‘Woo-00-00’ when 
people go by in the dark and scare ’em.”’ And he gave 
such a good imitation of an owl’s hoot that Bruce, the 
Collie dog, who always either walked or sat beside Goldi- 
locks’ chair, began to bark and circle wildly about, nose 
in alr. 
“T’m very sure I shouldn’t care to be an owl, for then 
I should have to eat meadow mice and moles, and swallow 
them, fur and all, and that would taste so mussy,’’ said 
Goldilocks. 
So it came about that all the children were in very good 
humour when they entered Birdland on Goldilocks’ birth- 
day, and Gray Lady smiled happily as she looked at the 
group with her precious daughter in the midst and thought 
that her experiment had begun with a happy omen. 
Though many of the apples that grew on the trees of 
the old orchard would not have taken prizes at the 
country fair, they looked very tempting to the youngsters, 
— Baldwins, Spitzenburghs, and russets of two sorts, the 
green and the golden, were still on the trees, but there 
were great heaps of earlier varieties on the ground, and 
Jacob and another man were busy sorting them over. 
Reading in the children’s eager faces what they would 
like to do, Gray Lady said, ‘‘You may run off now and 
have all the apples you want, and an hour for playing 
‘hide-and-seek,’ ‘red lion,’ or ‘Indians,’ in all the orchard 
and meadows and woodland yonder, and then when you 
hear a horn blow come back and you will find us over in 
