194 fHistory of Gutia-Percha Willie,

 

What will papa and mamma say? Won't they be
delighted? I must run and fetch Mona.”

So saying she hurried across again, and down
the stair, and away to look for Mona Shepherd,
shouting with delight as she ran. In a few minutes
her cries had gathered the whole house to the
bottom of the garden, as well as Mr Shepherd and
Mona and Mrs Hunter. Mr Macmichael and all
of them went up into the tree, Mr Shepherd last
and with some misgivings; for, having no me-
chanical faculty himself, he could not rightly vatue
Willie’s, and feared that he might not have made
the stair safe. But Mr Macmichael soon satisfied
him, showing him how strong and firm Willie had
made every part of it.

The next evening, Willie went on with his plan,
which was to make a way for Bird Agnes from one
tree to another over the whole of the clump. It
took him many evenings, however, to complete it,
and a good many more to construct in the elm
tree a thin wooden house cunningly perched upon
several of the strongest boughs and branches. He
called it Bird Agnes’s Nest. It had doors and
windows, and several stories in it, only the upper
stories did not rest on the lower, but upon higher
branches of the tree. To two of these he made
stairs, and a rope-ladder to a third. When the
house was finished, he put a little table in the
largest room, and having got some light chairs