A Bouquet of Song Birds 
her work seemed really to be only play, for 
she could not lay a single stick of timber in the 
house without stopping and having a long song 
about it, and was in a perpetual bubble of de- 
light. A gentleman, passing by at the time, 
had an evil word for the universally detested 
English sparrows, as making life a burden to 
these merriest of warblers in that neighbor- 
hood ; which is a very great pity, for an ounce 
of wren is worth a ton of sparrow. 
And, by the way, that pair of wrens were 
particularly happy in their choice, for a home, 
of that grassy field studded with apple-trees— 
surroundings so cheerful, rustic, and corfgenial 
with their nature. I say, pair of wrens, al- 
though I saw only one during all my stay ; for 
there is something monstrous in the thought of 
an old bachelor or an old maid wren building 
a house for solitary use. 
It seems strange that poets have so infrequent- 
ly alluded to the apple-tree. All who are so 
fortunate as to have been born in the country 
—where everybody ought to be born—will cer- 
tainly acknowledge that, of all trees, this is the 
most typical of spring and fall. Anyone is to 
be pitied, in whose memory of early years there 
are no kindly thoughts connected with this 
37 
