126 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
“How could you? —can you climb trees?” asked Eliza 
Clausen, evidently much surprised. 
“No, I couldn’t climb as far as this Crow’s nest, Eliza, 
though I could have once,” laughed Gray Lady. “Stand 
up on that seat by the corner window and look straight 
down into the spruce with a crooked top and tell me what 
you see.” 
Eliza jumped up on the seat, and, after gazing a minute, 
cried, ‘“‘Why, it’s a big ’normous nest, and I can see every 
stick as plain as print.” 
“Take this opera-glass, hold it to your eyes and move 
the screw to and fro until everything is very clear, and then 
tell me what you see,” said Gray Lady. 
It took Eliza some time to manage the glass, but when 
she at last succeeded she cried, “‘Oh, I can see the moss 
and the grass and the hair; it comes as near as if I could 
touch it.’”’ And one after another the children learned to 
adjust the focus and look, and it was the first, but not the 
last, time that glasses would open a new world to them. 
“Tt was a little less than three weeks that the birds 
sat upon the eggs, sharing the work between them, before 
the little birds were hatched. Such ugly, queer little 
things as they were, both blind and featherless. In three 
weeks more they were well grown and able to fly, but their 
tails were still shorter than their parents’, and they were 
inclined to return to the nest on the slightest alarm. 
“About this time Jacob Hughes told me that either 
Crows or Hawks were taking little chickens early every 
morning, for they could not get them during the daytime 
without being seen. 
“T looked at the runs for the little chicks and saw that 
