BABES IN THE WOODS 



Her maternal eye had proved the quicker. She had 

 found her young. Something Hke reason and com- 

 mon-sense had come to her rescue; she had taken 

 time to look about, and behold! there was that 

 precious doorway. She thrust her head into it, then 

 sent back a call to her mate, then went farther in, 

 then withdrew. " Yes, it is true, they are here, they 

 are here!" Then she went in again, gave them the 

 food in her beak, and then gave place to her mate, 

 who, after similar demonstrations of joy, also gave 

 them his morsel. 



Ted and I breathed freer. A burden had been 

 taken from our minds and hearts, and we went cheer- 

 fully on our way. We had learned something, too; 

 we had learned that when in the deep woods you 

 think of bluebirds, bluebirds may be nearer you 

 than you think. 



The young rabbits I saw one day in early May 

 on the edge of a clearing in the woods suggested 

 babies quite as much as the bluebirds did. The 

 mother had come out of the cover of the rocks and 

 bushes and made her nest on a dry knoll in the 

 edge of a muck swamp where the ground had been 

 cleared only a week or two before. The man at 

 work with the grubbing-hoe came near striking into 

 the nest, when the young sprang out. He caught 

 them and put them back under their cover and 

 resumed his work in another place. In the aftcr- 



219 



