XV 



I'VE found out about that mocking bird. 

 He's quit his singing; I haven't heard a peep 

 out of him for a week. He's too busy. Late 

 yesterday afternoon, when the first hint of the 

 evening coolness of the mountains was in the 

 air, Laura and I sat in the shade of the grape- 

 vine that hides the nest. We were talking a 

 little, by fits and starts, and watching Peggy 

 and Betty as they played at "tea party" on 

 the grass before their tiny house. 



Then there came a sudden flash of warm 

 brown and warm gray in the slanting sunlight, 

 and there was the songster of last week balanc- 

 ing airily on a stem of the vine just over our 

 heads, flicking his tail with sharp, excited jerks, 

 twisting sideways to take a keen look at us. 

 He must have figured us out as harmless, for 

 he went hopping along the stem to disappear 

 in the thick leafage. We saw why he hadn't 

 been singing lately: He held a small brown 

 grasshopper in his bill! In a moment there 

 came from the deeply sheltered nest a sound 



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