y._

There seemed to be no doubt about this. They certainly were not. In
spite of bran mashes, pepper, cotton batting, blue veil and tender
care, they refused to even consider the question of laying.

Philip was quite satisfied with them as they were, if they would only
stay with him, but the customers who had bought and paid for highly
recommended young fowl were inclined to be impatient and even
unpleasant when the two parent birds were to be seen gadding around the
street at all hours of the day, utterly regardless of their young
master's promises.

Philip learned to call them. His "cutacutacoo--cutacutacoo" could be
heard up and down the street. Sometimes they seemed to pay a little
attention to him, and then his joy was full. More often they seemed to
say, "Cutacutacoo yourself!" or some such saucy word, and fly farther
away.

One night they did not come home. Philip's most insistent "cutacutacoo"
brought no response. He hired boys to help him to look for them,
beggaring himself of allies and marbles, even giving away his Lucky
Shooter, a mottled pee-wee, to a lynx-eyed young hunter who claimed to
be able to see in the dark. He even dared the town constable by staying
out long after the curfew had rung, looking and asking. No one had seen
them.

Through the night it rained, a cold, cruel rain--or so it seemed to the
sad-hearted, wide-awake little boy. He stole out quietly, afraid that
he might be sent back to bed, but only his mother heard him, and she
understood. It was lonesome and dark outside, but love lighted his way.
He groped his way up the ladder, hoping to find them, but though the
straw, the cotton batting, the blue veil, the water-dish were all in
place--there were no pigeons!

Philip came back to bed, cold and wet in body, but his heart colder
still with fear, and his face wetter with tears. Under cover of the
night a boy of ten can cry all he wants to.

His mother, who heard him going out and who understood, called softly
to him to come to her room, and then sympathized. She said they were
safe enough, never fear, with some flock of pigeons; they had got
lonesome, that was all; they would come back when they got hungry, and
the rain would not hurt them, and be sure to wipe his feet!

The next day they were found across the street with Jerry Andrews'
pigeons, as unconcerned as you please. Philip parted with his Lost Heir
game--about the only thing he had left--to get Jerry to help him to
catc