Nothing can be more delightful than 
the song of our mocking birds, heard 
when the moonlight makes the night 
almost as light as the day and the 
south wind is ladened with the delicious 
odors of roses and honeysuckle. 
At last the eggs were hatched and 
five baby birds demanded food. The 
parent birds worked constantly from 
dawn till dark, but, from the loud “‘ce- 
ce-ce’ which greeted them each time 
they neared the nest, one might suppose 
the supply of food never equaled the 
demand. 
A young mocking bird seems all 
mouth and legs. He is a comical lit- 
tle creature with his scant covering of 
gray down, long legs, large feet and 
ever-open mouth, with its lining of 
bright orange. 
As the old bird approaches the little 
ones squat flat in the nest, throw back 
their heads and open their enormous 
mouths, which must seem like so many 
bottomless pits to the parent birds 
when they are tired. 
If my favorite cat, Mephistopheles, 
tried to take his nap anywhere in the 
vicinity of their nest Jack and Jill 
would fly at him, screaming, and, boldly 
lighting upon his head, try to peck at 
his eyes. He would strike at them and 
spit, but they would only fly upon the 
fence or rose-trellis and in a moment 
dart at him again. The battle would 
continue until Mephistopheles retired 
to a safer place. 
I have seen many such battles, but 
never one where the bird was not vic- 
torious, 
One morning, when the birds were 
still quite sma!l, one of them tumbled 
from the nest. At first I thought the 
mother-bird might have pushed it out 
that it might learn to fly, but after see- 
ing the feathers of its wings had only 
reached the tiny pin-feather stage, I 
knew it was too young for such efforts 
and concluded that the nest was over- 
crowded. I tried to put it in the nest 
' for it was drenched with the dew from 
the grass. 
Jack and Jill objected so seriously to 
my assistance that I had to give up 
this plan, for they flew at me just as 
they did at Mephistopheles. Fearing 
the cat would hurt it I was compelled to 
take it into the house. 
156 
Then my troubles began. It seemed 
to take all of my time to feed this one 
bird, and I could not imagine how Jack 
and Jill could take care of it and four 
others. 
For awhile it seemed very much 
frightened, but at length began to chirp. 
The old birds answered at once and 
soon came to the screen on the window 
and called to it. Knowing they would 
feed it if they could reach it I had to 
keep it away from them, for, should 
they discover it was a prisoner, they 
would give it poison. 
We named it Chippy and it soon be- 
came a great pet. Whenever anyone 
entered the room where it was its mouth 
flew open, and from its shrill “chee-chee- 
chee,’ one might easily imagine it was 
on the verge of starvation. 
When I had had it a week it would 
try to fly from the floor to the lower 
rounds ofachair. When it had learned 
to fly, if left alone it would call until 
someone answered, and then follow the 
sound unti] it found them. I have 
known it to fly through two rooms, a 
downstairs hall, up the stair-steps, 
through the upper hall, and into my 
room in response to my whistle. 
When it first made this journey it 
could fly only two or three feet at a 
time and had to fly from step to step 
up the stairway. 
Soon after this I took Chippy out of 
doors. He was very much delighted 
when placed ina young hackberry tree, 
where he could fly from branch to 
branch. When he reached the top of 
the tree Jill flew into a tree near by and 
tried to coax him to come to her. I 
saw Chippy spread his wings and sup- 
posed I had lost my pet. Imagine my 
surprise when he gave a shrill scream 
and flew straight to me, lighting on my 
shoulder and nestling against my face. 
Jill followed him, resting in a vine 
some three or four feet from me. When 
coaxing failed she flew away but soon 
returned with a grasshopper in her bill. 
I drove Chippy away from me, hop- 
ing he would return to his own family, 
where his education could be carried on 
according to their ideas. 
He flew into a tree, ate the grasshop- 
per which Jill fed to him, and then flew 
on the roof of the porch outside my 
window, where he sat calling me. Go- 
