“I rubbed my eyes and pinched my arm, to make sure I was awake; for I thought I must have dreamed it.  But no, there it was again, sweet, sad, reproachful:  ‘NAUGHTY GIRL!  NAUGHTY GIRL!  NAUGHTY GIRL!  Y-E-S,’

“I jumped up in a rage, and called it a horrid thing; and when it wouldn’t stop, but kept on reproaching me with my evil behavior, I could bear it no longer, but put my fingers in my ears and ran back to the house and up to my own room, where I cried with anger and shame.  But solitude and reflection soon brought me to a better state of mind; and, long before the day was over, I had confessed my fault and was forgiven.  But though I wanted very much to see a new water-wheel Charlie set up that afternoon in the brook, I dared not go through the wood to get to it, lest that small bird should still be calling, ‘Naughty girl!  Y-e-s.’

“Charlie grumbled the next morning when I wakened him out of a sound sleep by shouting gayly from my little bed in the next room that his weather-bird was calling, ‘Pleasant day!’ ‘Why, what should he call,’ he wanted to know, ‘with the sun shining in at both windows?’

“I never told my brother how the bird had given voice to my accusing conscience, nor has the lesson ever been repeated; for from that day to this the Warbling Verio has made no more personal remarks to me.”

“There’s a bird down in Maine” said Ann Eliza Jones, “they call the Yankee bird, ’cause he keeps saying, ’All day whittling—­whittling—­whittling.’”

“Yes; and the quails there always tell the farmers when they must hurry and get in their hay,” said her sister.  “When it’s going to rain they sing out:  ‘More wet! more wet!’ and ‘No more wet!’ when it clears off.”

“Aunt Ruth,” said Mollie, “please tell us about the funny little bantam rooster who used to call to his wife every morning:  ’Do—­come out—­n-o-w!’”

“Very well; but we are getting so much interested in this bird-talk that we are making rather slow progress with our work.  Suppose we all see how much we can accomplish in the next ten minutes.”

Upon this Mollie caught up the block lying in her lap, Florence re-threaded her needle, Nellie Dimock hunted up her thimble, which had rolled under the table, and industry was the order of the day.

And while they worked, Miss Ruth told the story of

THE WIDOW BANTAM.

“She belonged to our next-door neighbor, and we called her the Widow because her mate—­a fine plucky little bantam rooster—­was one day slain while doing battle with the great red chanticleer who ruled the hen-yard.