Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/150

 in the spring had thousands and thousands of lovely pink blossoms on it, and in the autumn had many bright red apples.

The nursery of this cottage was a little bower of a room, and here five little children used to come to be dressed and have their hair brushed and curled every morning.

Now it used to happen, every morning, that the five little heads would be peeping out of the window, together, into the flowery boughs of the apple tree; and the reason was this. A pair of robins had built a very pretty, smooth-lined nest directly under the window. The robins, at first, had been rather shy of this inspection; but, as they got better acquainted, they seemed to think no more of the little curly heads in the window than of the pink blossoms about them, or the daisies and buttercups at the foot of the tree.

When the little nest was finished, it was so neat, and workmanlike, that the children all exulted over it, and called it "our nest," and the two robins they called "our birds." But wonderful was the joy when the little eyes, opening one morning, saw in the nest a beautiful pale-green egg; and the joy grew from day to day, for every day there came