I thanked her, and went with her to the little shop. There beside his work bench stood a boy about twelve or thirteen years old. He was painting the wren house a dark green. The bluebird house was finished, ready to put up.
I told him I had put up my bird houses long ago, and that the bluebirds had been house hunting for some weeks. He said that there were so many English sparrows around his place that he feared they would nest in his houses if he put them out early. But he had just learned of a way to keep the sparrows from nesting in bluebird houses. He said his manual training teacher had advised him to mount his houses for wrens and bluebirds only about eight feet from the ground, since the English sparrows seldom nest lower than ten feet from the ground, and will not be likely to take a house that is lower.
The boy put up the bluebird house while I was there, on a young maple that afforded plenty of shade. His bluebirds were house hunting too, and visited the house right away.
I told him about the tin sheeting to keep cats and squirrels down. He said he had been using tangle-*foot, the sticky stuff that is sometimes put on trees to keep bugs down. But he said that cats and squirrels didn't mind climbing over it, and he was going to try the tin.
I fear that the boy was not wise in delaying so
