10 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
chimney, and you will have sore eyes.” “Well,” 
said -Mrs. King bird, “as you said at first, it 
is none of your business, and von had better 
go home.” 
Mrs. Blackbird came over one day, and said, 
“Your tree is dead, and you wont have any 
protection from the sun, and you will get very 
wet when it rains. There is plenty of room 
in my tree, and you are welcome to build 
there.” “Thank you,” said Mrs. King bird, 
“but I have raised several families, and have 
never lost any from sun or rain, and we al¬ 
ways build in just such places; we want a 
place where we can see what is around us.” 
After this there was no more advice given 
by the other birds, and the nest progressed 
rapidly. Nothing was heard from Mrs. Blue 
Jay in all this time, and I wondered whether 
she had made up her mind to not notice the 
new comers; but she was only waiting for a 
good time to make a fuss. One day I heard 
a great commotion among the birds, and ran 
to the window to see what was the matter. As 
I reached the window, I saw four or five blue 
feathers falling to the ground, and heard Mrs. 
King bird sav, “Don’t vou dare to come over 
here again, or I will pull every feather out of 
your body.” Mrs. Blue Jay flew home scream¬ 
ing with anger and pain, for she had lost some 
of her softest breast 'feathers, that she al¬ 
ways brooded her babies with. She stayed at 
home for a time, for all the nests were done, 
and it was time to lay the eggs. I used to go 
out everv morning and look at Mrs. King bird 
whose head could be seen just above her nest. 
Her bright eyes saw everything that was go¬ 
ing on and several flies lost their lives for 
venturing too near her. There the brave 
little bird sat, through smoke, rain and sun¬ 
shine. The other birds from their well pro¬ 
tected nests, often said, “I told her how it 
would be, but she would not listen, so she must 
take the consequences.” After a while T knew 
there were young birds in all the nests, and 
they were always hungry; the parent birds 
worked all day long, and hardly had a chance 
to get a fly for themselves, there were so many 
little ones to feed. Once Mrs. Blue Jay came 
over to see the young birds, but she got no 
farther than the top branch, for Mrs. King 
bird flew at her with such fury, that Mrs. Blue 
Jay did not wait to explain that she meant 
no harm. The other birds rejoiced among 
themselves, that Mrs. Blue Jay had finally met 
someone that she could not trouble. She had 
been so hateful to them many times, and they 
were too weak to punish her. One morning as 
I went out to see the birds.. I saw four little 
King birds sitting on the branch near the nest. 
What dear little beauties they were. Their 
soft white breasts were so clean, and their eyes 
were so bright, that I did not wonder their 
parents were proud of them, and were willing 
to work hard for them They sat there preen¬ 
ing their feathers just as the other birds did, 
and flapping their wings to make them strong. 
They were a little bit shaky on their legs, to 
be sure, but they would not go back to the 
nest, for they were big enough to sleep on the 
tree as their mamma did. 
Then began a series of persecutions for the 
poor cats, that had no intention of touching 
the birds, unless they had a good chance, and 
woidd not be caught. Thomas White would 
want to lie on the sidewalk, because it was 
warm and sunny; but it was of no use for 
him to try to convince those King birds that 
he hadn’t a single front tooth, and only three 
or four back teeth; they would fly at him and 
scold him, till h’e would have to get up and 
find some place where they would not see him. 
Peletiah and Tiger both protested against 
not being allowed to sit on the wood pile and 
wash themselves; the King birds were sure 
that cats could not see their baby birds better 
there, than on the ground, so the cats had to 
get out of sight of the birds. 
Casper, the little dog, did not like to have 
his naps interfered with, and he would chase 
the birds; that made them angry, and just as 
soon as he would settle himself for a nap, the 
King birds would dive down at him, and some¬ 
times almost touch him. After they had made 
h'im tired of chasing them, they would sit on 
the clothes line and say, “You can’t catch us, 
can you? Well, vou had better not try any 
more, and you needn’t even look at our ba¬ 
bies.” One day I was startled by a call of 
terror and anger from Mrs. Blue Jay, and went 
to the door to see what the trouble was and 
there sat a large crow, by Mrs. Blue Jay’s 
nest, intending to have baby Blue Jays for 
his supper. I ran out to drive him away, but 
quick as I was, the neighborhood birds were 
there as soon as 1 got there. And what a chor¬ 
us of angry screams there was from the King 
birds, Robins, Grosbeaks, Golden Robins, Black¬ 
birds, Sparrows and Woodpeckers all flying at 
the Crow. He sat there a minute, and then 
concluded that perhaps he would not have any 
