We were exceedingly desirous of seeing that family start out in life, and we did, in a way that startled us as much as it must have surprised them. "I wonder if they're gone," was our anxious thought every morning as we approached; and one day, not seeing either parent, we feared they had made their début without our assistance, in the magical morning hours when so many things take place in the bird-world.
"I mean to see if they are still there," said my comrade, creeping up to the mass of roots, leaning far under, and carefully thrusting one finger into the nest.
A dynamite bomb could not have been more effective, nor more shocking to us, for lo! in sudden panic five baby wrens took flight in five different directions. The cause of the disturbance rose, with a look of discomfiture on her face, as if she had been caught robbing a nest. She seemed so dismayed that I laughed, while those wrenlings made the air fairly hum about her head.
[Sidenote: _"ASSISTED" OUT OF THE NEST._]
That they were ready to fly, and only waiting for "the Discourager of Hesitancy" to start them, was plain, for every one used his little wings manfully,--perhaps I should say wren-fully,--and flew from fifteen to twenty feet before he came down. In less than a minute the air was filled with wren-baby chirps, and we seated ourselves to await the mother's return and witness the next act in the wren drama. The mother took it philosophically, recognizing the chirps, and locating them with an ease and precision that aroused envy in us bird-lovers, to whom young-bird calls seem to come from every direction at once. She immediately began to feed, and to collect them into a little flock. With her help we also found them, and watched them a long time: their pretty baby ways, their eager interest in the big world, their drawing together as they heard one another's voices, and their cozy cuddling up together on a log.
Feeling that we had made disturbance enough for one day, we finally went home; but the next day, and several days thereafter, we hunted up the little family as it wandered here and there in the woods, noting the putting on of pert wren ways, and the growth of confidence and helpfulness. We identified them fully as the family of our beautiful singer, for we saw him feed them, then mount a projecting root and sing his perfect rhapsody, not fifteen feet from us.
