him. The result must have been satisfactory, for
presently he observed:

"Purty fair day's wages, but I believe I could make more killing terns
and gulls than these birds. Bill Jones and the hunters up on Cobb's
Island last year got ten cents apiece for all the gulls they killed.
Forty thousand were killed right there. Oh, it's bound to be a mighty
good business for us fellows as long as the wimmen are in the notion,
that is, if the birds ain't all killed off."

"Air they getting scarce?" questioned the boy. The man ejected a
mouthful of dark, offensive juice from between his grizzled whiskers
before replying.

"Yes, purty tol'ble scarce. So much demand for 'em is bound to clean
the birds out. There used to be heaps of orioles an' robins an' larks
an' blackbirds an' waxwings through the country, but they're getting
played out too, since the wimmen tuk to wearin' 'em on their bunnets."

"Well, no woman sha'n't have my bird for her bunnet," and the boy gave
me another friendly pinch that nearly broke my bones. "I'm a going to
put it in that old cage that's out in the shed and give it to Betty, if
she wants it."

"Humph! she won't keer for it. You'd better kill it. Betty won't be
bothered with it."

"She may give it away, or let it loose, or do what she pleases with it,
then," was the boy's reply.

I learned from their further conversation that the hunter sold his game
to another man who cured the skins for shipment to the city. To this
dealer the bag which held my dead companions was taken and I saw them
no more. Arriving at the hunter's home I was put under a bucket that I
might not escape, while my captor prepared my prison for me. It was an
almost needless precaution for I had been so cramped between his
fingers that I feared I could never again use my legs or wings. Just
before putting me in my rude prison house he brought a pair of shears
and bade Betty clip my wings.

"Oh, I'm afraid it will hurt it!" she exclaimed, pushing away the
extended scissors.

"Nonsense, you ninny! What if it does hurt it?" and he roughly knocked
my bill with his hand.

"Now that's real mean, Joe. You're a scaring it to pieces. Here,
Dickey Downy, I'm going to give you a pretty name if you belong to me;
let me hold you. Why, its little heart is a thumping as if 'twould
burst through its body."

Joe was reluctant to loosen his grasp, and between being pulled first
one way and then the other by the two children