“Come, Fanny,” said George Lewis, “put on your hat, and go out with me among the trees and bushes. It is a bright, glorious morning, and I have a secret to reveal to you, sister, when we get where nobody will overhear us.”

“Oh, that’s grand,” cried Fanny, with her face kindling up with joy, and her curiosity, like herself, all on tiptoe. “I love to find out secrets.”

She took her brother’s hand, and away they hied, running and leaping, over the field, past the new hayricks, across the rivulet, and into the flowery border of a thicket. Here was a little silvery fountain, gushing from a mossy rock, and flashing to the light over its pebbly basin; and there a green, arching bough, hung with clusters of wild berries, and trembling from the weight and motion of their light-winged gatherer; while the air was filled with sweet perfume, and the songs of the feathered warblers sounded from shrub and tree on every side.

“But what is it—what can it be that you have to tell me, George?” said Fanny; “I’m out of breath to know the secret.”

“Be patient, and you shall know it in the right time,” replied her brother.

“Oh! how can you be so cruel as not to tell me now?” said Fanny. “How long have you known the secret without letting me know it, too? I shan’t be able to go much farther, if you keep it from me. My heart is all in a flutter.”

“I don’t want to tell you, with your heart all in a flutter. You should be calm, so as to hear what I say, and to enjoy the sight I have to show you,” said the young philosopher.

“I am calm, now, and I have been patient,” said Fanny. “Come, dear Georgie, do tell me.”

Georgie kept silence, and proceeded a few paces, when he paused; and lifting a long, leafy branch, disclosed to the eye of the delighted girl a beautiful nest, full of young birds, so closely snuggled in their little round cell, that they looked as if, from below the neck, they grew together.

In momentary surprise at the sudden flood of light that poured upon them, the nestlings put up their heads, as if to ask what was meant by it, and who it was that had unroofed them. They had never received anything but what came from care and kindness; they were innocent, and therefore they knew no fear. Putting forth their open beaks at the strange visitants, they cried, “Petweet-tweet, petweet-tweet,” as if their mother had hung over them with their morning gift of food.

Fanny was for a moment as much surprised as they. Then, in an ecstacy of delight, she sprang forward, and would have dislodged the nest from its place, to take the birds, and examine them with her fingers, as well as her scrutinizing eye, had not her brother checked her motion, and stood between her and his casket of living jewels.

“Oh! I want to touch them!” said she. “But how long have you known of this nest?”

“Ever since it was begun to be built,” said George.

“And didn’t tell m-e!” said Fanny, in a whimpering tone.

“No,” replied George, “but I will tell you the reason why I did not. Had I told you then, Fanny, we should never have seen these little birds here. You haven’t the art of keeping a secret belonging to your own concerns or another’s, long enough for anything depending on its being kept to come to pass. You will surely, in some way, let it slip too soon. You would not tell it if you promised not to do so; but by some air or act, or mysterious manner, you would show them that you knew something that was unknown to others, and set them to watching and studying for it. If I had told you of the nest, you would have wanted to be running out every little while to see how it went on, till the bird would have found herself watched, and forsaken it, to build somewhere else. Or you would have wanted to break the blue shells, to see if the insides of the eggs were growing into birds; just as you dug up your flower-seeds, to know if they were sprouted; and broke open the green rose-buds, to find out if the under leaves were turning red. So your seeds never came up, and your roses didn’t bloom; all for your impatience and curiosity. If you had not done this, your continual coming would have drawn the attention of some of the boys or girls, to learn what was here, till they would have found the nest, and robbed it. You have too much curiosity, Fanny. If you choose, tell your own secrets, and take the consequences. But they who cannot keep their own, are not very likely to be trusted with those of others. And as to coming at them by prying, I should feel as if I was ‘tiefing,’ as the Frenchman told his little boy he had been doing, when he cut the shoot from grandpapa’s English walnut-tree, to make him a rattan. If I discovered, by accident, what concerned another, and was not designed for my knowledge, I should feel sorry, and that I had no more right to tell or expose it, than I should have to spend a piece of money that I saw another drop. This secret was the bird’s—and I should have caused her great distress by telling it. It is the kind of curiosity which makes you want to know what others are about, what they have, and so on, that gets you into your worst troubles, sister. You saw John bring in a covered basket, and put it on a shelf in the cellar closet. The next that was heard was the basket, eggs and all, smash upon the brick floor; and sister Fanny shouting lamentably and crying, ‘Oh, dear, dear, they are all over my feet!’ So none of us had pudding that day. Then, when you saw your mother wet her eyes with clear water from a phial, and thought you’d try it too, you found the sal volatile not quite so cooling to yours, as the rose-water to hers. No wonder that they wept!

“Now, Fanny, since I’ve played minister, and preached you such a sermon on curiosity over this nest, I know you’ll prove so good a hearer as not to show that you know anything about the secret, till the birds are a few days older, and can fly away.—Then they’ll come and do the singing part of the service, from the trees around our house.”

Fanny looked thoughtful and solemn, and only replied, “I’m glad I didn’t break the bird’s eggs. There never would have been any music nor pretty birds come from these if I did break them. They would have been made into a pudding; the pudding would have made me heavy and sleepy, so that I should not have got my lesson so well, and I should have been mortified at school.”

Table of Contents