Our Charlie And What To Do With Him (1859)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859. Excerpt: ... 110 THE NEST IN THE ORCHARD. It was a bright and beautiful morning in April. The snows had melted into the little brooks, and the little brooks ran rattling and gurgling about among the green mossy stones. The violet had opened its fair blue eyes to look forth from its tufts of leaves; the broad blades of the waterflag and the blue lily were shooting up fresh and green; the yellow dandelions spotted the grass, and tufts of golden cowslips grew close by the water. The little leaves had just begun to show themselves, and looked like a thin green veil spread over the trees. The little birds had come back a long way through the air from the various countries where they had been spending the winter, and were filling the whole air with music. On a mossy rail, a part of the orchard fence, sat two beautiful bluebirds enjoying the bright sunshine, and twittering and chattering to each other with all their might. This pair of birds, the last year, had made their nest in this very orchard, and brought up a whole family of little birds. All winter they had been chirping about and enjoying themselves among the warm sunny valleys of the Bahama Isles; and now they had come back again to go to housekeeping in the old orchard. In the very middle of this peaceful orchard was a spreading apple-tree, whose bending branches almost touched the ground. The tall grass and clover grew up so high under this tree as to mix with the leaves and fruit on the end of these boughs, and underneath there was a delicious cool little room, rooffd by the branches, where all summer long no creature had admission but the birds, and the flies, and the honey-bees; for this tree stood in the very middle of the orchard, and Farmer Brown kept good watch that no boys should get into it to trample dow...