“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 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.”