TO INTRODUCE ORESTES
Hervey moved cautiously in along the limb to a point where he felt sure
that it would hold his weight, and as he did so it moved slowly up into
place. What the little householder thought of all this topsy-turvy
business it might be amusing to know. For surely, if the world war
changed the map of Europe, the little neighborhood of leaf and branch
where this timid denizen of the woods lived and had its being, had been
subject to jolts and changes quite as sweeping. Now and again it poked
its downy speckled head out for a kind of disinterested squint at
things, apparently unconcerned with mighty upheavals so long as its
little home was undisturbed.
Hervey Willetts straddled the branch and calculated the thickness of
it.
"You all right?" he heard Tom call from below.
"Yop," he called back; "did you see his nobs fly away? Back to the crags
for him, hey? Wait down there a few minutes, I'm going to bring a
friend."
Hervey had now a very nice little calculation to make. In the first
place he must not frighten his new acquaintance by approaching too near
again. Neither must he make any sudden and unnecessary noise or motions.
He knew that a nest of that particular sort was more than a home, it was
a comparatively safe refuge, and he knew that its occupant would not
emerge and desert it without good cause. One of those precious twenty
badges was evidence of that much knowledge.
His purpose was to cut the branch as near to the nest as he dared, both
from the standpoint of the bird's peace of mind and his own safety. The
further from the nest he cut, the thicker would be the branch, and the
more cutting there would be to do. To cut too near to the nest might
frighten his little neighbor on the branch, and endanger his own life.
Yet if he cut the branch where it was thick, how could he handle it
after it was detached? How would he get down with it through all that
network of lower branches?
In his quandary he hit on a plan involving new peril for himself and
doubtless some agitation to his little neighbor. He would not detach the
nest from its branch, for how could he ever attach it to another branch
in a way satisfactory to that finicky little householder? He knew enough
about his business to know that no bird would continue to live in a nest
which had been tampered with to that extent.
So he advanced cautiously out on the branch again till he could reach
the nest. Then very gently he bound his handkerchief about the opening.
Having done this, he cut into the branch with his scout knife within
about six or eight inches of the nest. When he had cut the branch almost
through it was a pretty ticklish matter, straddling the stubby end, for
he had the tip of the branch with the nest still in his hand and was in
danger of losing his balance.
Sitting there with his legs pressed up tight against the under side of
the branch so as to hold his balance on his precarious seat, he held
the end in one hand while he carefully pulled away the twigs from the
end beyond the nest. Thus he had a piece of branch perhaps twenty inches
long, with the nest hanging midway of it. This he held with the greatest
care, lest in turning the branch the delicate fabric by which it hung
should strain and break away. You would have thought that that little
prisoner of the speckled head owned the tree, which in point of fact was
owned by Temple Camp, notwithstanding its distance from the scout
community. So it was really Hervey's more than it was little
downy-head's if it comes to that.
It is not every landlord that goes to so much trouble for a tenant.