The next day Mrs. Jenny retired into the tin pot, and later, when Mr.
Wren peeped in, lo! an egg, all spotted with red and brown, lay upon the
soft lining of the nest.
"It's quite the prettiest thing in the world," proudly said Mr. Wren.
"Why, my dear, I don't believe your cousin, Mrs. John Wren, ever laid
one like it. It seems to me those spots upon the shell are very
remarkable. I shouldn't be surprised if the bird hatched from that shell
will make a name for himself in bird-land some day, I really shouldn't."
"You foolish fellow," laughed Mrs. Wren, playfully pecking him with her
bill, "if you were a Goose your Goslings, in your eyes, would all be
Swans. That's what I heard our landlady say to her husband last night,
out on the porch, when he wondered which one of his boys would be
president of the United States."
Mr. Wren chuckled in a truly papa-like manner and pecked her bill in
return, then fairly bubbling over with happiness flew to a neighboring
limb, and burst into such a merry roundelay, one note tumbling over
another in Wren fashion, that every member of the household came out to
hear and see.
"There he is," cried Pierre, as Mrs. Wren left her nest and flew over
beside him, "with tail down and head up, singing as though he were mad
with joy."
"Such a rapturous song," said mamma. "It reminds me of two almost
forgotten lines:
'Brown Wren, from out whose swelling throat
Unstinted joys of music float.'
"How well we are repaid for the litter they made, are we not?"
"And sure, mum," said Bridget, whose big heart had also been touched
by the sweet song, "it's glad I am, for sure, that I wasn't afther
dispossessin' your tinents. It's innocent craythurs they be, God bless
'em, a harmin' ov no wan. Sthill--"
"Well," queried her mistress, as Bridget paused.
"Sthill, mum, I do be afther wonderin' if the tin pot had been a hangin'
under the front porch instead of the back, would ye's been after takin'
the litter so philosophyky like as ye have, mum, to be sure."
The mistress looked at Bridget and laughingly shook her head.
"That's a pretty hard nut to crack, Bridget," said she. "Under those
conditions I am afraid I----" What ever admission she was going to make
was cut short by a burst of laughter from the children.
"Look at him, mamma, just look at him," they cried, pointing to Mr.
Wren, who, too happy to keep still had flown to the gable at the
extremity of the ridge-pole of the house, and after a gush of song, to
express his happiness was jerking himself along the ridge-pole in a
truly funny fashion. From thence he flew into the lower branches of a
neighboring tree, singing and chattering, and whisking himself in and
out of the foliage: then back to the roof again, and from roof to tree.
"I know what makes him so happy," announced Henry, who, standing upon a
chair, had peeped into the nest. "There's a dear little egg in here.
Hurrah for Mrs. Wren!"
"Do not touch it," commanded mamma, "but each one of us will take a peep
in turn."
Mrs. Wren's bead-like eyes had taken in the whole proceeding, and with
fluttering wings she stood on a shrub level with the porch and gave
voice to her motherly anxiety and anger.
"_Dee, dee, dee_," she shrilly cried, fluttering her little wings, which
in bird language means, "oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?"
Her cries of distress were heard by Mr. Wren, and with all haste he flew
down beside her.
"What is it?" cried he, very nearly out of breath from his late
exertions. "Has that rascally Mr. Jay----"
"No, no!" she interrupted, wringing her sharp little toes, "It's not Mr.
Jay this time, Mr. Wren. It's the family over there, _our_ family,
robbing our nest of its one little egg."
"Pooh! nonsense!" coolly said Mr. Wren, taking one long breath of
relief. "Why, my dear, you nearly frighten me to death. You know, or
_ought_ to know by this time, that our landlord's family have been
taught not to do such things. Besides you yourself admit them to be
exceptionally good children and good children never rob nests. Fie, I'm
ashamed of you. Really my heart flew to my bill when I heard your call
of distress."
Mrs. Wren, whose fears were quite allayed by this time, looked at her
mate scornfully.
"Oh!" said she, with fine sarcasm, "your heart flew into your bill
did it? Well, let me say, Mr. Wren, that if it had been my mother in
distress, father at the first note of warning, would have flown to her
assistance with his heart in his _claws_. He kept them well sharpened
for just such occasions, and woe to any enemy _he_ found prowling about
his premises."
"Oh, indeed!" said Mr. Wren, "I presume he would have attacked Bridget
over there, and the whole family. To hear you talk, Mrs. Wren, one would
think your father was a whole host in himself."
"And so he was," said she, loftily, "I have seen him attack a _Bluebird_
and a _Martin_ at the same time and put them both to flight. An _Owl_
had no terrors for him, and as for squirrels, why----" Mrs. Wren raised
her wings and shrugged her shoulders in a very Frenchy and wholly
contemptuous manner.
"I'm a peace-loving sort of a fellow, that you know, Mrs. Wren,
deploring the reputation our tribe has so justly earned for fighting,
and scolding, and jeering at everything and everybody. Indeed they go so
far as to say we trust no one, not even our kindred. But mark me, Mrs.
Wren, mark me, I say! Should any rascally Jay, neighbor or not, ever
dare approach that tin pot over yonder, or ever alight on the roof of
the porch, I'll, I'll----" Mr. Wren fairly snorted in his anger, and
standing on one foot, doubled up the toes of the other and struck it
defiantly at the imaginary foe.
"Oh, I dare say!" tauntingly said Mrs. Wren, "you are the sort of fellow
that I heard little Dorothy reading about the other day. You would fight
and run away, Mr. Wren, that you might live to fight another day."
Mr. Wren lifted one foot and scratched himself meditatively behind the
ear.
"Good, _very_ good, indeed, my dear! It must have been a pretty wise
chap that wrote that." And Mr. Wren, who seemed to find the idea very
amusing, laughed until the tears stood in his eyes.
Mrs. Wren smoothed her ruffled feathers and smiled too.
"Tut, tut, Jenny," said the good-natured fellow, "what is the use of us
newly married folk quarreling in this fashion. Think how joyous we were
less than one short hour ago. Come, my dear, the family have all left
the porch, save Emmett. Let us fly over there and take a look at our
treasure." And Mrs. Wren, entirely restored to good humor, flirted her
tail over her back, hopped about a little in a coquettish manner, then
spread her wings, and off they flew together.
Mrs. Wren the next day deposited another egg, and the next, and the
next, till six little speckled beauties lay huddled together in the cosy
nest.
"Exactly the number of our landlord's family," said she, fluffing her
feathers and gathering the eggs under her in that truly delightful
fashion common to all mother birds. "I am so glad. I was greatly puzzled
to know what names we should have given the babies had there been more
than six."
"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Mr. Wren, who in his joy had been
treating his mate to one of his fine wooing songs, and at length coaxed
her from the nest, "but I dare say we would have named them after some
of our relatives."
"Why, of course," assented Mrs. Wren, "I certainly would have named one
after my dear, brave papa. Mrs. John Wren says that boys named after a
great personage generally develop all the qualities of that person."
"Oh, indeed!" sniffed Mr. Wren, "that was the reason she named one of
her numerous brood last year after our rascally neighbor, Mr. Jay, I
presume. Certainly the youngster turned out as great a rascal as the one
he was named after."
Mrs. Wren's head feathers stood on end at once.
"For the life of me," she said tartly, "I cannot see why you always fly
into a passion, Mr. Wren, whenever I mention dear papa, or Mrs. John, or
in fact _any_ of my relatives. Indeed--but sh-sh! There's one of our
neighbors coming this way. I verily believe it is, oh yes, it is, it
_is_----" and Mrs. Wren wrung her toes, and cried _cheet, cheet, cheet_,
and _dee, dee, dee_! in a truly anxious and alarming manner.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]