a new house every moving day, the egret repairs and fixes over
the old house year after year, putting in a new brace there, adding
another stick here, to make it firm enough to bear the weight of the
mother and the three young birds which always comprise the brood.

The three pale-blue eggs in this nest had been duly hatched, and the
fond mother was now brooding over her darlings with every demonstration
of maternal affection. She was a beautiful creature with her graceful
movement, her train of plumes, and her long neck gracefully curved.

The quick sharp boom, boom of the guns had been echoing through the
swamp for some time, and the men were now coming nearer. The efforts
of the poor mother to shield her babies were piteous, but the hunters
did not want them. Their scant plumage is worthless for millinery
purposes. Possibly the mother might have escaped had she been willing
to leave her dear ones; but she would not desert them, and was shot in
the breast as the reward of her devotion. The nestlings were left to
starve.

Would you think the woman who wore that bunch of feathers on her bonnet
could take much pleasure in it?

CHAPTER VIII

THE PRISON

Like a long-caged bird
Thou beat'st thy bars with broken wing
And flutterest, feebly echoing
The far-off music thou hast heard,
--_Arthur Eaton._

This was my last day of liberty for many, many months. The very next
evening I was stunned by a stone thrown by a small boy who accompanied
a hunter. Picking me up he ran toward his father, who was coming back
from the neighboring swamp with his loaded gamebag.

"This bird isn't dead," said the boy, holding me up to view, "and I'm
going to put it in a cage and train it to talk."

"Crows are the kind that talk. That's no crow nor no starling
neither," answered the man. "Better give it to me to kill. I'll pay
you a penny for it."

"Naw, you don't," and the boy drew back, at the same time closing his
hand over me so tightly that I feared I would be crushed. "I'm going
to keep him, I tell ye. He's mine to do what I please with, and I
ain't agoing to sell him for a penny, neither."

So saying he ran along in front of his father till we reached the mule
cart. Into this clumsy vehicle they climbed and soon we were jogging
over the sandy road to their home. As we drove along the man computed,
partly to himself, partly aloud, how much money the contents of his
game-bag would bring