6 OUR FRIENDS, THE BIRDS. 
spent all of her leisure hours in observing the 
songs and habits of birds. She always spent the 
long vacation with Laura and her parents. When 
Laura was scarcely out of babyhood, her aunt 
noticed her fondness for birds, and it was not long 
before Laura was learning a great deal about their 
habits and homes. 
The vacations came and went while Laura was 
unconsciously spending the summer days in the best 
kind of a school. Last summer she had just fin- 
ished her seventh grade work, so her aunt began to 
introduce her to bird literature. They had many 
talks together about the “poetry of birds,” and her 
aunt recited to her the beautiful poetic fancy embod- 
ied in the verses entitled: 
