Page:Bird-lore Vol 08.djvu/162

 A Bit of Robin History By EUGENIA CHAPMAN GILLETTE, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin With photographs from nature by the Author THEY had gone to housekeeping the preceding summer in the hard maple just opposite my window; and, though they built well above the level of the chimney-top, tragedy overtook them when the young were but half-fledged. The following season, they built where they could command the pro- tection of their friends who had locks and keys. On Saturday morning, April 18, 1903, as I sat long at the breakfast table, idly watching the boughs blowing about in the high wind, my attention was attracted by a piece of white cord that came sailing across the upper sash of the window. Before I arose from the table the same, or a similar piece of cord blew across that window for the third time. Then I bestirred myself, and went out to see what wind was bringing us such an abundance of white string. And there was my friend Mrs. Robin, of the previous year. I knew her by having only the left outer tail-feather tipped with white. She busily wrought, against discouraging odds, at the foundation of a new home, on the ledge of my chamber window, above. Every time. she succeeded in getting a considerable collection of material on the ledge, a particularly prankish gust would come along and sweep it clean again. And at nightfall, after a hard day's work, there was the merest suggestion of building material there. Sunday morning dawned bright and still, and with the first glimmer came Madam Robin with string and coarse grass, which she plastered securely to the ledge with the mud she carried up from beneath our neighbor's pump. "The better the day, the better the deed," and Mrs. Robin worked buoyantly all that bright Sabbath day, making minute-and- a-half trips for her lumber and plaster, and by late afternoon she was lining the nest with fine grass, tucking the ends in carefully with her beak, and ' carding' with her little feet, which flew with lighting speed, as she pressed her breast against the walls, and turned round and round in the nest, moulding it to the right curve. When all was done she flew up into the maple tree, made repeated descents upon this joy of her heart, alighting first upon the brink, and then cuddling down ecstatically. During all this time her spouse had not appeared, and about sundown she flew away, and was gone for five long days. I wearied for her return, and wondered if she had found other quarters she considered preferable, or if, perchance, she had gone a-visiting her relations, or was taking the precaution to have the plaster thoroughly dry before moving in. I never learned the reason of her absence, but on the morning of April 24., she came, with Mr. Robin, and took possession of (126)