MARTIN AND HIS BIRD FRIENDS 



T TOME at last," warbled the lustrous purple 

 martin, as he finished his fifteen-hundred- 

 mile flight and alighted on the front porch of his 

 own home, which Farmer Good had erected for him 

 two years before, and which he had left last Sep- 

 tember for his winter quarters in the southern seas. 

 Early in April he had left the Isle of Pines, a small 

 island due south of Cuba, where he had made many 

 friends whom he was continually telling of the at- 

 tractive summer home he had in Illinois on the big 

 farm. He invited them to come with him and 

 spend their summer, and he enlarged upon the 

 beauty of the house, with its twenty-four commodi- 

 ous outside rooms, all with the most modern con- 

 veniences, and the four special suites for the newly- 

 weds who he hoped would join the party. He went 

 into ecstasies describing the surroundings of his 

 home, with its beautiful setting and the natural 

 grandeur of the place, and also told them of the 

 great number of bird friends of other families they 

 would meet there, assuring everyone of the great 



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