



Produced by Turgut Dincer (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)










  Bird Children

  The Little Playmates
  of the Flower Children

[Illustration: Children playing]

  By

  Elizabeth Gordon


  Drawings by

  M.T.Ross

[Illustration: Printer’s Mark]

  Published by
  P.F.Volland & Company
  Chicago



  Copyright 1912
  P. F. Volland & Company
  All Rights Reserved

  Sixth Edition




  _To all children who love
  Birds and Flowers, and
  especially to my little friend
  Dorothy Virginia,
  this book is lovingly dedicated._




FOREWORD

Birds are only another expression of God’s love, and we are told that
not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without the notice of the
Father.

Birds are poetry come to life and set to music. If you should stand
at the edge of a forest at sundown and hear the birds singing their
good-night songs, hear the sleepy little notes grow fainter and fainter
until the silence came,—then when the dusk had deepened, you should
hear the night birds begin their plaintive songs, you would realize
what a different place our beautiful world would be without birds.

Even in great cities we have always some birds. The saucy little
sparrow, who comes so boldly begging crumbs at your window, likes the
cities best.

Only very thoughtless people, or those who do not understand, would
harm or frighten a bird.

They are real little people, and I am sure that when you have come to
know them you will love them as much as you have learned to love the
Flower Children.

The publishers and the author have received so many letters from
parents comm