Page:Explorers of the Dawn (February 1922).djvu/260

Rh peck at his perch; and beat his wings for hours after it. Won't you, my pet?"

Coppertoes crouched on his perch, his beak open, making little hissing sounds.

"Well, there was a man," went on the cobbler, "a student fellow he was, who was always making queer messes with chemicals, and fancying he was about to discover some wonderful new combination. He lived in a top room in a high, narrow house, well on towards three hundred years ago. And all those years, a family of song-sparrows, and their descendants, had nested under the eaves directly above his window. Hatched out their young; fed them; and taught them to fly. Very well. This student fellow was all in a fever one morning because he believed that, at last, his great discovery was all but perfect. Just a few hours more and he would have it in the hollow of his hand. But he could not rightly fasten his brain to work because of the constant cheeping of the young sparrows under the eaves. Every time the mother bird brought them a moth or worm they raised a chorus of yells; and when she flew away, they cheeped for her to come back again.

"The student-fellow shut his window, but it did not keep out the noise. Then he flung open the window and waved his arms and shouted at them. But they only cheeped the louder. Now a dread-