“This was the outside of the house; the nursery itself was hollowed in the centre of the moss and was about a foot across and quite deep. This hollow was well lined and soft; it had in it moss, soft grasses, and some horsehair. In due time the nest was finished and held six very handsome eggs, dull green with purplish brown markings, two being more thickly spattered with them than the other four. At this time I began to take an interest in the household affairs of Jack and Jill Crow.” “How could you?—can you climb trees?” asked Eliza Clausen, evidently much surprised. “No, I couldn’t climb as far as this Crow’s nest, Eliza, though I could have once,” laughed Gray Lady. “Stand up on that seat by the corner window and look straight down into the spruce with a crooked top and tell me what you see.” Eliza jumped up on the seat, and, after gazing a minute, cried, “Why, it’s a big ’normous nest, and I can see every stick as plain as print.” “Take this opera-glass, hold it to your eyes and move the screw to and fro until everything is very clear, and then tell me what you see,” said Gray Lady. It took Eliza some time to manage the glass, but when she at last succeeded she cried, “Oh, I can see the moss and the grass and the hair; it comes as near as if I could touch it.” And one after another the children learned to adjust the focus and look, and it was the first, but not the last, time that glasses would open a new world to them. “It was a little less than three weeks that the birds sat upon the eggs, sharing the work between them, before the little birds were hatched. Such ugly, queer little things as they were, both blind and featherless. In three weeks more they were well grown and able to fly, but their tails were still shorter than their parents’, and they were inclined to return to the nest on the slightest alarm. “About this time Jacob Hughes told me that either Crows or Hawks were taking little chickens early every morning, for they could not get them during the daytime without being seen. “I looked at the runs for the little chicks and saw that they stood in the open, not close to woods where Crows and Hawks could spy them out and sneak up or dash down according to their habits. “I well knew the bad name that Crows and Hawks have among poultry-raisers, so Jacob roofed the chicken-runs with wire, for, even if he had seen Crows there, I would not allow shooting on the place during the nesting season. “Still the chickens disappeared, and for several nights Jacob sat up and watched, and what do you suppose—cats and weasels were the guilty ones, not the Hawks and Crows!