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All stories should have an ending. It’s fine, isn’t it, when they end happily?

And this story of the Orioles did end happily–oh, so happily!

It was this way, you see.

The little grey house on the elm was finished.

It hung down from the end of the green branch, under the leaves. It looked both like a fairy house and a little crocheted bag.

Now for some days Mother Oriole didn’t go out very much. She stayed in her little house.

But Father Oriole kept about his work, hunting for the little brown crawling things and the green crawling things that made their food.

He would whistle every once in a while to tell Mother Oriole that he was near. Sometimes it was just a few notes to say:

“I’m still here–my dear,
Still here, still here, still here.”

Sometimes:

“All right, my love!”

Sometimes just:

“All’s well!”

But if a strange man came too near the tree his song was sharp and angry.

“Look out, look out, look out!
He’s a rogue, an awful rogue, look out, I say!”

But somehow he didn’t seem to mind the children.

“Why does Mother Oriole sit so quietly on her nest?” Marmaduke asked his own mother.

“I wish I could lift you up so that you could see. But the nest is too high up. It’s out of harm’s way. Dicky Means, who has a cruel heart and robs birds’ nests, can’t reach it way up there!”

“What’s in it, Muvver?” asked little Hepzebiah. You see her little tongue didn’t work just right. She never could say words with “th” in them.

“Little eggs, dear. They are white, with little dark spots and funny dark scrawls on them as if somebody had tried to write with a bad pen.”

Then Marmaduke asked:

“And is she keeping them warm?”

“Yes, so that they will hatch out. They will, very soon now.”

So for a number of days in the warm weather, and in the rainy weather too, Mother Oriole sat faithfully on her nest. Bird mothers and the mothers of little children are always very patient. Then came one fine morning when the sun was particularly jolly and bright, and the blossoms smelt very sweet and were beginning to fall from the trees. The three happy children stood under the elm and looked up at the tiny hanging nest.

They heard new noises, strange noises.

It sounded like babies.

Yes, the little Oriole babies had broken their shells and had been born at last.

They didn’t have many clothes on. But some day their feathers will be as pretty as their father’s.

How they did cry for food! Somehow baby Orioles cry more than other bird babies. They seem to want to eat all the time.

And how Father Oriole did work to keep them fed, whistling every once in a while to make things pleasant for his family! I wonder if they appreciated all the things he and Mother Oriole did for them. And the days passed and the little birds grew fatter on the bugs and the beetles which their father brought, just as fat as the little boys or girls on their oatmeal and bread and milk, which their fathers work hard to earn for them.

The little Orioles were certainly noisy little birds, and when they cried sometimes the children saw funny little heads and beaks poking out of the nest.

Then more days passed and Father and Mother Oriole taught them to fly, just as Father and Mother Green had taught little Hepzebiah to walk. Marmaduke remembered how his Mother had held Hepzebiah and Father stood a little way off. Then Hepzebiah had started. She was a little frightened at first but she made the journey. It was only a few steps and her father caught her before she fell. She tried this often and soon she could take a great many steps.