that you will one day become a teacher."

Gretchen went home that afternoon with a glad heart. Benjamin did not
return to the school again for several days, and when he came back it
seemed to be with a sense of humiliation. He seemed to feel somehow that
he ought not to have fallen from the tree.

The fourth of July came, and Master Mann had invited the school to come
together on the holiday for patriotic exercises. He had one of the pupils
read the Declaration of Independence on the occasion, and Gretchen played
the President's March on the violin. He himself made an historical
address, and then joined in some games out of doors under the trees.

He brought to the school-house that day an American flag, which he hung
over the desk during the exercises. When the school went out to play he
said:

"I wish I could hang the flag from a pole, or from the top of one of the
trees."

Benjamin's face brightened.

"I will go," he said; "I will go _up_."

"Hang it on the eagle's nest," said one of the pupils. "The eagle is the
national bird."

Mr. Mann saw that to suspend the national emblem from the eagle's nest
would be a patriotic episode of the day, and he gave the flag to Benjamin,
saying:

"Beware of the rotten limbs."

"I no woman," said Benjamin; and, waving the flag, he moved like a
squirrel up the trees. He placed the flag on the nest, while the eagles
wheeled around him, screaming wildly. He descended safely, and made the
incident an object lesson, as Mr. Mann repeated the ode to the American
eagle, found at that time in many reading-books.

While Mr. Mann was doing so, and had reached the line--

"Bird of Columbia, well art thou," etc.,

one of the eagles swept down to the nest and seized the banner in his
talons. He rose again into the air and circled high, then with a swift,
strong curve of the wings, came down to the nest again, and, seizing the
flag, tore it from the nest and bore it aloft to the sky.

[Illustration: _The eagle soared away in the blue heavens, and the flag
streamed after him in his talons._]

It was a beautiful sight. The air was clear, the far peaks were serene,
and the glaciers of Mount Hood gleamed like a glory of crystallized light.
The children cheered. The bird soared away in the blue heavens, and the
flag streamed after him in his talons. He dropped the flag at last over
a dark, green forest. The children cheered again.

It was miles away.

"I go find it," said Ben