Mrs. Phoebe perched on a maple branch on the shady side and watched two porches. She thought she would like the front one the better, and had already chosen her window ledge, when she noticed a pair of English Sparrows dragging straws and feathers toward it and disappearing inside the cornice. "Not there," she said firmly, as she clutched the branch even more tightly with her pretty black feet. "I will not have quarrelsome neighbors, and I could never bring our children up to be good if the young Sparrows were always near, showing them how to be naughty." Then she darted after a Fly, caught and swallowed him, and was back on her perch.
"I wonder how the back one would do?" she said. "There are no steps leading to it, and those sweetbrier bushes all around it would keep Boys from climbing onto the railing."
She flew near and saw the Maid kneading bread by one window. A door stood open into the big kitchen, and through two other windows she could look into a pleasant dining-room. "I wouldn't mind that," she said. "If I have plenty to eat myself, I would just as soon see other people eating. We like different things anyway. I dare say those people never tasted an insect in their lives and do not even know the flavor of a choice Fly." Then she swallowed a careless Bug who had mistaken her for an English Sparrow and flown when he should have stayed hidden. Mrs. Phoebe was much interested in the nest, but not so much as to let an insect escape. Oh, never so much as that!
Mr. Phoebe watched the back porch on his side. Some Robins were building on a window-ledge there, which he thought exceeding imprudent. But then he was not surprised, for everybody knows how careless Robins are. That is why so many of them have to leave their nests--because they are built where no nest should be. Mr. Phoebe could tell at a glance that no bird should build there. Woodbine climbed over the pillars and fell in a thick curtain from the cornice, and beside the door stood a saucerful of milk. "That means a Cat," said he, "a Cat who stays on this porch most of the time and always comes here when he is hungry. And when he tires of milk he will climb up that woodbine and finish with young Robin. Or, perhaps," he added, "I should say that he will finish _a_ young Robin."