EARNING A TITLE 13 



time, and did the birds no harm whatever; so 

 they very soon accepted me as a part of their 

 daily life. 



One of the heartbreaks of my childhood oc- 

 curred when one of our hired men forgot his in- 

 structions and put up the third bar of an opening 

 in one of the west field fences, which I had asked 

 Father to have him leave down, because in the open- 

 ing chiselled out to hold the bar was the nest of 

 a chippy having four exquisite, speckled eggs. 

 When I found this bar in place and could not re- 

 move it, I hurried to my father in a tumult of 

 grief and anger which very nearly resulted in the 

 dismissal of the man; but it was too late to save 

 the bird and her nest. 



I can not recall how many robin nests I located 

 in a season, but there were two locations in which 

 the robins built where access to them was espe- 

 cially convenient. One was a catalpa tree in the 

 northwest corner of our dooryard, to the branches 

 of which I could easily step from the front picket 

 fence. In my morning rounds I always climbed 

 to visit this robin, sitting on a branch talking to 

 the brooding mother bird, almost always carrying 

 her a worm or a berry in my apron pocket as a 

 friendship offering. The other location was the 

 early harvest apple tree of our orchard. This 

 tree was especially designed by nature for the 

 convenience of children in climbing. In the first 

 place the tree grew at an angle, and in the second 



