THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



work. She let fall some of her mortar upon me, but 

 at least I had no fear of a falling brick. She gradu- 

 ally got used to me, and her work was progressing 

 into the moss stage when two women appeared and- 

 made their beds upon the porch, and in the morning 

 went to and fro with brooms, of course. Then 

 Phoebe seemed to say to herself, "This is too much," 

 and she left her unfinished nest and resorted to the 

 empty hay-barn. Here she built a nest on one of the 

 bark-covered end timbers halfway up the big mow, 

 not being quite as used to barns and the exigencies 

 of haying-times as swallows are, who build their 

 mud nests against the rafters in the peak. She had 

 deposited her eggs, when the haymakers began 

 pitching hay into the space beneath her; sweating, 

 hurrying haymakers do not see or regard the rights 

 or wants of little birds. Like a rising] tide the fra- 

 grant hay rose and covered the timber and the nest, 

 and crept on up toward the swallow's unfledged 

 family in the peak, but did not quite reach it. 



Phoebe and her mate hung about the barn discon- 

 solate for days, and now, ten days later, she is hov- 

 ering about my open door on the floor below, evi- 

 dently prospecting for another building-site. I hope 

 she will find me so quiet and my air so friendly that 

 she will choose a niche on the hewn timber over my 

 head. Just this moment I saw her snap up a flying 

 "miller" in the orchard a few rods away. She was 

 compelled to swoop four times before she inter- 



