“Ooh!—ooh!” exclaimed Vesta, catching sight of a low, flashing touch of red as a robin lighted upon a twig nearby. Her hand was up, and her eyes were wide open. “Yes,” said Gerhardt, as happy as if he himself had but newly discovered this marvelous creature. “Robin. Bird. Robin. Say robin.” “Wobin,” said Vesta. “Yes, robin,” he answered. “It is going to look for a worm now. We will see if we cannot find its nest. I think I saw a nest in one of these trees.” He plodded peacefully on, seeking to rediscover an old abandoned nest that he had observed on a former walk. “Here it is,” he said at last, coming to a small and leafless tree, in which a winter-beaten remnant of a home was still clinging. “Here, come now, see,” and he lifted the baby up at arm’s length. “See,” said Gerhardt, indicating the wisp of dead grasses with his free hand, “nest. That is a bird’s nest. See!” “Ooh!” repeated Vesta, imitating his pointing finger with one of her own. “Ness—ooh!” “Yes,” said Gerhardt, putting her down again. “That was a wren’s nest. They have all gone now. They will not come any more.” Still further they plodded, he unfolding the simple facts of life, she wondering with the wide wonder of a child. When they had gone a block or two he turned slowly about as if the end of the world had been reached. “We must be going back!” he said. And so she had come to her fifth year, growing in sweetness, intelligence, and vivacity. Gerhardt was fascinated by the questions she asked, the puzzles she pronounced. “Such a girl!” he would exclaim to his wife. “What is it she doesn’t want to know? ‘Where is God? What does He do? Where does He keep His feet?” she asks me. “I gotta laugh sometimes.” From rising in the morning, to dress her to laying her down at night after she had said her prayers, she came to be the chief solace and comfort of his days. Without Vesta, Gerhardt would have found his life hard indeed to bear. CHAPTER XXVII