“Great idea!” said Mary, brightening.  “Are you really willing to divide your bloomers?  I’d be ever so much obliged.”

“It’s no trouble,” replied Agony.  “All I have to do is cut the threads where the top is tacked on to the foundation.  It’s really two pairs of bloomers.”  She was already cutting the tacking threads with her pocket knife.

Mary put on the green bloomers and Agony the brown foundation pair, and laughing over the mishap and the clever way of handling the problem, the two crossed the road and entered the woods.

“What’s that loud cheeping noise?” Agony asked almost as soon as they had entered into the deep shadow of the high pines.

“Sounds like a bird in trouble,” answered Mary, her practised ear recognizing the note of distress in the incessant twittering.

A few steps farther they came upon a man sitting in a wheel chair under one of the tallest pines they had ever seen, a man whose right foot was so thickly wrapped in bandages that it was three times the size of the other one.  He was peering intently up into the tree above him, and did not notice the approach of the two girls.  Mary and Agony followed his gaze and saw, high up among the topmost swaying branches, a sight that thrilled them with pity and distress.  Dangling by a string which was tangled about one of her feet, hung a mother robin, desperately struggling to get free, fluttering, fluttering, beating the air frantically with her wings and uttering piercing cries of anguish that drove the hearers almost to desperation.  Nearby was her nest, and on the edge of it sat the mate, uttering cries as shrill with anguish as those of the helpless captive.

“Oh, the poor, poor bird!” cried Mary, her eyes filling with tears of pity and grief.  At the sound of her voice the man in the wheel chair lowered his eyes and became aware of the girls’ presence.  As he turned to look at them Mary caught in his eyes a look of infinite horror and pity at the plight of the wretched bird above him.  That expression deepened Mary’s emotion; the tears began to run down her cheeks.  Agony stood beside her stricken and silent.

“How did it happen?” Mary asked huskily, addressing the stranger unceremoniously.

“I don’t know exactly,” replied the man.  “I was sitting here reading when all of a sudden I heard the bird’s shrill cry of distress and looked up to see her dangling there at the end of that string.”

“Can’t we do something?” asked Mary, putting her hands over her ears to shut out the piercing cries.  “She’ll flutter herself to death before long.”

“I’m afraid she will,” replied the man, “There doesn’t seem to be any hope of her freeing herself.”

“She shan’t flutter herself to death,” said Mary, with sudden resolution.  “I’m going to climb the tree and cut her loose.”

“That will be impossible,” said the man.  “She is up in the very top of the tree.”