THE OVEN-BIRD'S LOVE SONG. 177 



adding to the woods the only thing they lacked, 

 running water. 



Instinctively our feet turned up the path to 

 the oven-bird's nest, so narrow that we brushed 

 a shower from every bush. There he was, 

 singing at that moment. "Teacher ! teacher! 

 teacher!" he called, with head thrown up and 

 wing-s drooped. And then while we looked he 

 left his perch, and passed up between the 

 branches out of our sight, his sweet ecstatic 

 love -song floating down to delight our souls. 



Surely, we thought, all must be well in the 

 cabin among the dead leaves, or he could not 

 sing so. Yet life had not been all rose -colored 

 to the little dame whom we had surprised several 

 days before, bringing great pieces of what ap- 

 peared to be lace, to line the nest she had made 

 so wonderfully. We had watched her, breath- 

 less, for a long time, while she went back and 

 forth carrying in old leaves, softened, bleached, 

 and turned to lace by long exposure, arranged 

 each one carefully and moulded it to place by 

 pressing her breast against it, and turning rotn 1 

 and round in the nest. Curious enough she 

 looked as she alighted at some distance, and 

 walked not hopped to her little "oven," 

 holding the almost skeletonized leaf before her 

 like an apron, so busy that she did not observe 

 that she had visitors. 



