THE BIG SYCAMORE. Ill 



lordly composure quite ignoring her existence till 

 a blackbird bustled up, when they both started 

 nervously, and turning, sat demurely side by side 

 on the limb, the wind tilting their long tails. 



A pair of bright orange orioles had a nest in 

 the sycamore, though I never should have known 

 it had I not seen them go to it to feed their 

 young. It was a well shaded cradle surely, with 

 its canopy of big green leaves. 



There were a good many hints to be had, first 

 and last. A song sparrow appeared and stood 

 on a branch with its tail perked up in a business- 

 like way as if it had been feeding a brood. A 

 wren came to the tree, — a mere pinch of feathers 

 in the giant sycamore, — and though I lost sight 

 of it, many a hollow up in the fourteenth story 

 might have afforded a home for the pretty dear 

 without any one's being the wiser, unless it were 

 the bee-bird in the attic. A family of bush-tits 

 flew about in the sycamore top, looking like pin- 

 heads in a grove of trees. A black phoebe some- 

 times lit on the fence posts under the branches 

 — it wanted to find a nesting place about the 

 windmill in the opposite field, I felt sure, though 

 a boy had told me that the bird sometimes plas- 

 tered its nest onto the branches of the big tree 

 itself. Besides all the rest, rosy linnets and blue 

 lazuli buntings made the old tree ring with their 

 musical roundelays. 



One day when I rode down to the sycamore, 



