en
scratched--but she was frightened and she had been crying.

"There you are!" cried Mother Bobbsey, hugging her little girl in her
arms. "Not a bit hurt, my little fat fairy! But how in the world did you
get in the net, and what is it doing up on top of this hill in the midst
of a blueberry patch?"

"I--I just stumbled into it," said Flossie, "same as Freddie got stuck
in the mud, only I didn't wade in the water."

"No, there isn't any water around here," returned Nan. "I can't see what
a net is doing here. I thought they only used them to catch fish."

"Maybe they put it up here to dry, as the fishermen at the seashore dry
their nets," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"No," announced Tom, who had been looking at the net, "this ain't for
fishes."

"What is it for then?" asked Bert.

"It's for snarin' birds. I've seen 'em before. Men spread the nets out
on the grass, and over bushes near where the birds come to feed, and
when they try to fly they get caught and tangled in the meshes. I guess
this net ain't been here very long, for there ain't any birds caught in
it."

"But who put it here?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "I think it's a shame to
catch the poor birds that way. Who did it?"

Tom looked carefully around before he answered. Then he said:

"I think it was the gypsies."

"The gypsies!" cried Bert.

"Yes. They're a shiftless lot. They don't work and they take what don't
belong to 'em. They're too lazy to hunt with a gun, so they snare birds
in a net. Why, they'll even eat sparrows--make a pie of 'em my mother
says. And when they get robins and blackbirds they're so much bigger
they can broil 'em over their fires. This is a bird-net, that's what it
is."

"I believe you're right," said Mrs. Bobbsey, when she had looked more
closely at it. "It isn't the kind they use in fishing. But do you really
think the gypsies put it here, Tom?"

"Yes'm, I really do. They put 'em here other years, though I never seen
one before. You see the gypsies sometimes camp here and sometimes on the
mainland. All they have to do is to spread their net, and go away. When
they come back next day there's generally a lot of birds caught in it
and they take 'em out and eat 'em."

"Well, they caught a queer kind of bird this time," said Bert, with a
smile at his little sister. "And it didn't do their net any good," he
added, as he looked at the cut meshes.

"I'm sorry to have destroyed the property of any one else," said Mrs.
Bobbsey, "but we