"If you knew what a strong and fearless fellow he is, you would call him Teddy," answered the Gentleman, turning over a paper which said in big black letters, "Our Teddy Wins."
"Call him Teddy Silvertip then," said the Lady, as she reached for the bell. When the Maid came in answer to her ring, she said, "Belle, please take our Kitten into the kitchen and feed him." Then the Kitten let go and was carried away happy, for he had found a home. He had also learned how to manage the Lady and the Gentleman, and he was always _very_ firm with them after that.
Under the cornice of the tool-house was an old cigar-box with a tiny doorway cut in one end and a small board nailed in front of it for a porch. This had been put up for a bird-house, and year after year a pair of Wrens had nested there, until they began to think it really their own. When they left it in the fall to fly south, they always looked back lovingly at it, and talked over their plans for the next summer.
"I think we might better leave this nest inside all winter," Mrs. Wren always said. "It will seem so much more home-like when we return, and it will not be much trouble to clear it out afterward."
"An excellent plan, my dear," her cheerful little husband would reply. "You remember we did so last season. Besides," he always added, "that will show other birds that Wrens have lived here, and they will know that we are expecting to return, since that is the custom in our family."
"And then do you think they will leave it for us?" Mrs. Wren would ask. "You know they might want it for themselves."
"What if they did want it?" Mr. Wren had said. "They could go somewhere else, couldn't they? Do you suppose I would ever steal another bird's nesting-place if I knew it?"
"N-no," said Mrs. Wren, "but not everybody is as unselfish as you." And she looked at him tenderly.
The Wrens were a most devoted couple,--all in all, about the nicest birds on the place. And that was saying a great deal, for there were many nesting there and others who came to find food on the broad lawn. They were small birds, wearing dark brown feathers on the upper parts of their bodies and lighter grayish ones underneath. Even their bills were marked in the same way, with the upper half dark and the lower half light. Their wings were short and blunt, and they had a habit of holding their tails well up in the air.