After nearly three hours of waiting, we made up our minds that these young folk must be out some time during the day, unless they had decided to take up permanent quarters in that hole in the stump, and what was more to the point, that the weather was too warm to await their very deliberate movements. So we left them, to get off the best way they could without us, or to stay there all their lives, if they so desired.
The nest, which at first was exceedingly picturesque--and I had resolved to bring it away, with the stump that held it--was now so demolished that I no longer coveted it. The last and sweetest song of the wren, "Shame-ber-ee!" rang out joyously as we turned our faces to the north, and bade a long farewell to the Great Carolinians.
All day long in the elm, on their swaying perches swinging, New-fledged orioles utter their restless, querulous notes.
The little folk let out the secret, as little folk often do, and after they had called attention to it, I was surprised that I had not myself seen the pretty hammock swinging high up in the apple boughs.
It was, however, in a part of the grounds I did not often visit, partly because the trees close by, which formed a belt across the back of the place, grew so near together that not a breath of air could penetrate, and it was intolerable in the hot June days, and partly because my appearance there always created a panic. So seldom did a human being visit that neglected spot, that the birds did not look for guests, and a general stampede followed the approach of one.
On the eventful day of my happy discovery I was returning from my daily call upon a blue jay who had set up her home in an apple-tree in a neighbor's yard. The moment I entered the grounds I noticed a great outcry. It was loud; it was incessant; and it was of many voices. Following the sound, I started across the unmown field,
"Through the bending grasses, Tall and lushy green, All alive with tiny things, Stirring feet and whirring wings Just an instant seen,"
and soon came in sight of the nest near the topmost twig of an old apple-tree.
It was about noon of a bright, sunny day, and I could see only that the nest was straw-color, apparently run over with little ones, and both the parents were industriously feeding. The cries suggested the persistence of young orioles, but it was not a Baltimore's swinging cradle, and the old birds were so shy, coming from behind the leaves, every one of which turned itself into a reflector for the sunlight, that I could not identify them.