CHAPTER XXV.. At the Garden Party.

AT THE GARDEN PARTY.

The morning dew was not off from the lilacs and the sweet calamus in the garden when the birds began to come to the party.

They came in pairs, and in groups, and in whole families. They were turning their heads this way and that, whispering and chatting and showing off their new spring suits, and looking shyly at the different kinds of food, like people at a picnic.

"Good morning," said old Mrs. Goldfinch to Mrs. Hummer. "I see you have a son almost as large as yourself. I do not understand how that can be so early in the season."

"Oh, I am very proud of my son," remarked Mrs. Hummer. "I have a daughter almost as large as my son. They are both very much like their father. I had good luck in raising them. It stormed once right into the nest, when they were very small and weak, but I kept mending the cradle as well as I could with thread which I bought of Mrs. Spider. I brought both of my children to the party with me."

"Oh, I never take my children to a party," said Mrs. Goldfinch. "I leave them with their nurse."

Mrs. Goldfinch said this with a haughty air, which quite amused Mrs. Hummer. She knew very well that Mrs. Goldfinch kept no nurse, but took care of her children herself night and day. "Very likely the cats will get them to-day," Mrs. Hummer was thinking.

"Good morning," said Mrs. Warbler to Mrs. Cliff Swallow. "I did not know you had returned. Have you come to stay with us now?"

"Oh, yes; I have come to stay," answered Mrs. Cliff Swallow. "We have taken rooms under the barn eaves. We are just making a cradle for the young ones we hope to have by and by. We have had a hard time to get all the mud we wanted, and thought we should be obliged to give up nest-making for this year. There was a nice puddle in the road where we were at work; you know we like road mud best, because it is so fine and sticky. When school let out, the small boys threw stones at us, hoping to hit some of us, I suppose, and so we had to go down to the river to get our mud, and that wasn't half so good as the road mud."

"That is too bad," said Mrs. Warbler.

Mrs. Cliff Swallow went on to say, "We have just heard such a slander about our family. Mrs. Owl told us. She overheard it outside of a window in the evening. Somebody has started the story that we swallows have fleas and other vermin in our nests, and on that account we ought not to be allowed to build around houses and barns. It is a dreadful story, and so false. I wonder how it started. I felt almost too ashamed to come to the party."

"Too bad; too bad," said Mrs. Warbler again. "I would not pay any attention to it. Folks will say unkind things about us all, if they happen to find just one of us in mischief. Of course all birds do have a few little mites or fleas in their houses, and they can't help that, any more than those great human people can help having house-flies and mosquitoes about them where they live.

"Now some folks think I pick holes in the window screens, just because I love to run over them, up and down and all around, after the flies. To be sure, I do stick my toes through the meshes to hold myself on, but what of that? I love to peep through the window at people eating breakfast in the morning when the flies are stiff with cold on the outside. I can catch my game easily then."

Just then the new birds came along, and all the rest stood in a row to be introduced by Mrs. Mocker. "Mr. and Mrs. Bush-tit," she said, "let me present you to all of your neighbors."

The strangers shook hands all around, and then the birds fell to asking Mr. and Mrs. Bush-tit questions in true Yankee style.

"Yes," they answered, "we are going to stay all this season. We are making a cradle in the eucalyptus house, which we have rented."

"Oh, I saw your cradle," said Mrs. Towhee; "it is such a queer one. It looks just like a bag with a little round hole in one side no bigger than a good-sized blackberry. What makes you build such a queer cradle as that?"

"That is the kind of a cradle all our family make. The little ones have to stay in until we boost them out, or until they are strong enough to climb out. It is very safe and warm. It is strong, too. We would not think of making such a cradle as you do, Mrs. Towhee. We felt very sorry one day when we found one of your babies dead on the ground, where it had fallen out of the nest when it was too weak to fly."

"Well, we are glad to see you, anyway," said Mrs. Towhee, wiping the tears out of her eyes. "Now make yourselves at home, and let your little Tits come over and play with our little Towhees."

Mr. and Mrs. Bush-tit bowed politely, and then along came Mr. Bluebird. "Why, how do you do?" he said. "What brought you here? I thought you lived up in the mountain with the other Bush-tits."

"What brought you here?" they answered, laughing in the sweetest way. And then they agreed that our yard is a very nice place, and they thought they would "bring their friends" often and picnic.

"We never have rented a house in this street," said Mr. Bluebird, "but we may do so some day. Do you think it would be safe to try to raise a family so near those great people?"

"We think so," said Mrs. Bush-tit, "but you ought to see them stand and stare at us. A big, kind-faced boy comes every day and writes in a note-book, looking straight into our house. Once he climbed up on a ladder and examined it. We were very much afraid, but he did us no harm. His eye was so blue and clear we could see ourselves in it. It looked just as if he couldn't hurt a bird.

"Then one day a lady came with the boy, and they both watched us and tried to make pictures of us, but we wouldn't keep still long enough. The lady is that boy's mother, and we heard her say, 'We'll tame these bush-tits some day, Jo, just as we did the humming-birds, and then we will write all about them for children to read.'"

Then Mr. Bluebird said, "Isn't it strange what queer things people do write about us? Sometimes they are right, and sometimes they are wrong. I wish some bird author would write a book about men and women and their queer ways. Wouldn't it be interesting?"

Then Madam Bush-tit laughed a merry little giggle that made Mr. Mocker look up in surprise, and he ran it over in an undertone before he should forget it.

Just then a yellow-breasted meadow lark carolled his sweet ditty on the tip-top of a pine tree. All the birds flew to welcome him to the garden party, coaxing him to stay and offering him lemonade from the cup of an orange blossom. They all loved Mr. Meadow Lark.

"No, thank you," he said; "I must be off. I love the fields better than the door-yards, and the violets and the cream-cups look out for my drink. I just came a minute to say good morning."

A whole flock of wax-wings took possession of a pepper tree and began to throw the seeds down on the heads of the birds beneath. "Oh, excuse us," they said, "we are tourists, and this yard looked so inviting we stopped for a few moments. How much do you ask a dozen for these pepper berries? We do not have any in our country. They are good eating, we find, when one has learned how to manage them. You ought not to charge us a great price, for they are almost all seed. How much do you ask?"

All the birds laughed, and then Mr. Mocker imitated the wax-wings, calling out in a saucy tone, "How much do you ask? How much do you ask?" The wax-wings were offended and flew away, the bit of red wax on the tip of their wing feathers showing very plainly in the sunshine.

"As if we ever charge anybody anything for what they eat," said Mr. Warbler. "I'm hungry myself." Then Mrs. Towhee, who had really gotten up the garden party, called them to dinner.

All the birds helped themselves. The hummers dipped away down into the honey-pot of a morning-glory, and the towhees and mockers ate worms and crickets in the damp grass; the warblers snatched gnats on the wing, and the bush-tits ran up and down on the tree boughs, in search of bugs so small nobody else could see them. Each bird took the sort of food it liked best, drinking at the hydrant and breaking the bottles of the raspberry vines.

Suddenly along came Mr. Butcher-bird. "Go away, go away," all the birds cried. "Nobody invited you to our garden party."

"But I am here," said Mr. Butcher, in an impudent manner. "I should like to have a taste of that fat young hummer."

Mrs. Hummer screamed, and down swooped the butcher. Everybody thought he was going to make a meal of the baby, when he surprised them by grabbing up a great Jerusalem cricket and darting off with it.

Mr. Butcher-bird thought it was a good joke, and he laughed loudly from the peach tree. But the birds were so scared that they all flew away, and so the garden party broke up.