|One rainy day Tommie was standing by the window watching the great
drops roll down the window-panes. He did n't like rainy days.
[Illustration: 0081]
All at once he heard a great noise in the fireplace. Such a chattering!
The screen was taken down, and there were four poor little
swallows clinging to the sides of the chimney. Tommie called them
"chimney-sweeps," and tried to catch one. It clung so fast to the
chimney sides that he could scarcely pull it off.
There was no nest to be seen. Tommie and his mamma thought the poor
little sweeps must have been frightened by the storm.
Tommie wondered what he could do with them. They could not go up the
chimney, and the old birds would never come down. If he put them in the
yard the cat would catch them.
[Illustration: 0082]
Then Tommie told his mamma that he could carry them to the observatory
on the house-top, and got his papa to put them in the chimney. He got a
little basket, caught the poor little birds, and put them in it. His
mamma tied a handkerchief over the top of the basket to keep the birds
in. By noon the sun was out, and Tommie's papa came home to dinner. They
went to the observatory, Tommie carrying the basket of "chimney-sweeps."
The little boy held the basket while his papa put the birds in the
chimney-top, one at a time. They clung to the bricks and began to cry
again.
Tommie was held up to see the little birds, and then they went down
stairs, so that the old birds might take care of their little ones and
not be frightened.
After Tommie had gone, the mamma and papa birds came up and showed the
little ones how to get to their nest again.
--AUNT NELL
[Illustration: 0083]
"ROCK-A-BYE BABY ON THE TREE TOP."
[Illustration: 0084]
One day last summer, down in Texas, there was a fearful storm. It was
a windstorm. The wind was so strong that it earned roofs of houses, and
such things, a great way.
When it was over, some men set out to follow the track of the storm. One
of them told this true story. They thought they might find things that
the wind had dropped; and they might find some one hurt and in need of
help.
It was near night, and quite dark in the woods, when they heard a cry.
They stopped to look heard the cry and then they saw some dark thing up
in a tree.
"It is a panther!" said one. "Stand off! I will shoot!"
"No; stop!" said another; "it is not a panther. I will climb up and see
what it is."
Up he went; and what do you think he found, lodged in the tree!
A cradle with a dear little baby in it! The fearful wind had blown down
the baby's home. It had carried off baby, cradle and all. The cradle was
caught by a branch of the high tree.
Then the wind blew against it so hard that the cradle was wedged in
a crotch of the tree. It was so fast that the men had to saw away the
boughs to get it down.
There was the dear baby, all safe and sound, in its cradle nest No one
knew where the baby's friends were, or where its home had been. The men
carried it to their home, and a kind woman took care of it.
Are you not glad that the poor little baby was saved in the tree? If
the cradle had fallen to the ground, you know, the little one might have
been killed. Was it not a good thing that the men heard the baby cry?
--MRS. D. P. SANFORD