FRIENDS IN FEATHERS 



how its eggs are blue-green like the sky above the sea, and 

 how to this day the Robin is man's good friend among the birds, 

 because he would scarcely have fruit crops at all, were it not for 

 the insects the bird destroys. During the story my eyes were 

 watching the dark gray bird with its bright breast, singing 

 through the rain the words I could plainly distinguish: "Cheer 

 up, dearie!" 



We were taught that a blessing came to any home with the 

 Robins so every inducement was extended to them to build 

 with us. The first year in a home of my own there were no Robins ; 

 by the second my overtures were accepted. Since, every summer 

 they are sure to build in the orchard, often in the vines on the 

 veranda and several times where the logs cross at a corner under 

 a porch they have set up housekeeping. 



Always we have extended to them every protection and as- 

 sistance in our power to give to a bird. The past year we had a 

 Robin in the wistaria vines on the veranda. The birds in feeding 

 perched on the logs not a yard from me or flew back and forth 

 across me as I lay in a hammock within a few feet of them. An- 

 other pair will find their last year's nest in the mulberry west of 

 the Cabin, only needing relining when spring comes again, while a 

 third can return to the elm by the back porch. 



But it is about Robins of a few years ago which I tell, as these 

 pictures are of them. One summer nine years past a pair of 

 young Robins established themselves in a plum-tree close the 

 back door. They had been hatched the previous summer, so 

 were shy and nervous as birds in their first brooding often are. 

 They attracted my attention by their timidity. I cautioned 

 my household to be especially careful in no way to alarm them. 

 I noticed the male, bird at the well one day drinking water from 

 the boards. 



Soon after he left I set out a dark, shallow baking-pan, filled 



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