The little German girl with the scarlet pinafore was a near neighbor, living at the head of the valley in a cottage surrounded by great live-oaks. These trees were alive with birds. Bush-tits flew back and forth, busily hanging their gray pockets among the leafy folds of the drooping branches; blue jays flew through, squawking on their way to the brush; goldfinches, building in the orchard, lisped sweetly as they rested in the oaks; and a handsome oriole who was building in the grove flew overhead so slowly he seemed to be retarded by the fullness of his own sweet song. But I had become so fond of the gentle gray titmouse whose nest I had helped to build, that of all the bird songs in the trees, its cheery tu-whit', tu-whit', tu-whit' was most enticing to me. How delightful it would be to watch another pair of the winning workers! I did see one of the birds enter a hollow branch, one day, and not long after saw it go down a hole in an oak trunk; but never saw it afterwards in either place. Back and forth I followed that elusive voice, hoping to discover the nest,[185] but I suspect the bird was only prospecting, and had not even begun to work.

The little German Gretchen became interested in the search for the titmouse's nest, and told me that a gray bird had built in an oak in front of her house. I rode right over to see it, but found the gray bird a female Mexican bluebird, whose brilliant ultramarine mate sat on the fence of the vegetable garden in plain sight. The children kept better watch of the nest after that, and a few days later, when in my attic study, I heard the tramp of a horse, and, looking out, found my little friend under the window, come to tell me that the eggs had hatched. When her older sister came for the washing I asked her if she had seen the old birds go to the nest, and she said, "Yes; one was blue and the other gray."

When I rode up again, the young had grown so that from the saddle I could look down the hole and see their big mouths and bristling pin-feathers. The mother bird was about the tree, and her soft dull coloring toned in well with the gray bark. The bluebirds had a double front door, and went in one side to come out the other. I saw both of them feed the young, the male flying into the hole straight from the fence post.

It seemed such hard work finding worms out in the hot sun that I wondered if birds' eyes ever ached from the intentness of their search, and if there were near-sighted birds. Perhaps the intervals[186] of feeding depend on the worm supply rather than the dietary principles of the parents.

Gretchen's mother was bending over her wash-tubs out under the oaks, and I called her attention to the pretty birds brooding in her door-yard, telling her that they were good friends of hers, eating up the worms that destroyed her flowers and vegetables. "So?" she asked, but seemed ready to let the subject drop there, and hurried back to her work. A poor widow with a large family of children and a ranch to look after can find little time, even in beautiful California, to enjoy what Nature places in her door-yard.

Three weeks later Gretchen came riding down to tell me that there were eggs in the tree again. The bluebird bid fair to be as hardworked as the widow, at that rate, I thought, when I went up to look at them. The children showed me the nest of a gold............