SOME CLEVER WEAVERS 37 
inspiration,” laughed Mabel. “ Indeed, his gay, 
high-whistled notes fairly bubbled over one an¬ 
other all the time, but to me it sounded sus¬ 
piciously like he was trilling a rollicking, self- 
congratulatory sort of chant: 4 Let the women do 
the work! Let the women do the work!’ His 
wife didn’t seem to mind, though. I rather fancy 
she was so interested in her intricate pattern that 
she never even heard him! Round and round 
she went, painstakingly weaving in material to 
make her clever little cradle warm and strong, all 
the time clinging to the nest with her feet, and 
working from below, poking the thread up and 
pulling it down through the width of two or three 
rounds in order to make it solid. Grasses, strings 
and horsehair seemed to be what she was using 
for the outside, all woven and blended together 
in the most wonderful fashion. You would never 
think a little bird could do such nice work! I 
don’t know when I have been so interested. Just 
imagine being a baby oriole and swinging high 
up in the elm tree, in that odd hanging pocket, to 
the tune of the old Wind’s low-murmured 4 Rock- 
a-bye, baby, in the tree top! ’ ” 
'* Peter! Peter! Clara Peter !" The reply, 
or the interruption, however one chose to take it, 
was the Baltimore oriole’s own contribution. He 
had settled all unnoted in the tip-top of a lilac 
bush close by, and his words gained immediate 
