itkwit, and saw a beautiful bird dodging,
gliding, halting, hiding in the underbrush, watching the child's every
motion. And when he ran forward to put his cap over the bird, it burst
away, and then--whirr! whirr! whirr! a whole covey of grouse roared up
all about him. The terror of it weakened his legs so that he fell down
in the eddying leaves and covered his ears. But this time he knew what
it was at last, and in a moment he was up and running, not away, but
fast as his little legs could carry him after the last bird that he saw
hurtling away among the trees, with a birch branch that he had touched
with his wings nodding good-by behind him.

There is another association with this same bird that always gives an
added thrill to the rush of his wings through the startled woods. It was
in the old school by the cross-roads, one sleepy September afternoon. A
class in spelling, big boys and little girls, toed a crack in front of
the waster's desk. The rest of the school droned away on appointed tasks
in the drowsy interlude. The fat boy slept openly on his arms; even the
mischief-maker was quiet, thinking dreamily of summer days that were
gone. Suddenly there was a terrific crash, a clattering tinkle of broken
glass, a howl from a boy near the window. Twenty knees banged the desks
beneath as twenty boys jumped. Then, before any of us had found his
wits, Jimmy Jenkins, a red-headed boy whom no calamity could throw off
his balance and from whom no opportunity ever got away free, had jumped
over two forms and was down on the floor in the girls' aisle, gripping
something between his knees--

"I've got him," he announced, with the air of a general.

"Got what?" thundered the master.

"Got a pa'tridge; he's an old buster," said Jimmy. And he straightened
up, holding by the legs a fine cock partridge whose stiffening wings
still beat his sides spasmodically. He had been scared-up in the
neighboring woods, frightened by some hunter out of his native coverts.
When he reached the unknown open places he was more frightened still
and, as a frightened grouse always flies straight, he had driven like a
bolt through the schoolhouse window, killing himself by the impact.

Rule-of-three and cube root and the unmapped wilderness of partial
payments have left but scant impression on one of those pupils, at
least; but a bird that could wake up a drowsy schoolroom and bring out
a living lesson, full of life and interest and the subtile call