eighborhood found him, sullen though he was, a
center of fascination, and would crowd about his cage, pointing out to
one another the jewel tints in his plumage.

"Cutest bird I ever seed 'cept the flicker," pronounced Snippet, whose
straw-colored hair stood out like a halo.

"Chickadees are nicer'n flickers," protested wise little Goody
Four-Eyes. "A chickadee eats three hundred cankerworms in a day and
over five thousand eggs--when he can get 'em."

The boys gave a choral snort.

"Who does the countin'?" demanded Punch.

"Wish _I'd_ been born with all the learnin' in me," scoffed Snippet.

But Goody, who had gathered many a pinecone for our feeding-boxes and,
her snub nose pressed snubbier yet against the window pane, had watched
the black-capped rolypolies twitch out the winged seeds, stood her
ground.

"Does, too," she averred stoutly. "Boys don't know about birds. They
stone 'em."

"And girls wear feathers in their hats."

"I don't, but Snippet's mamma does."

"Doesn't neither. She jes' wears regrets on Sunday."

"You don't say it right, but you're nothin' but a small boy."

"I'm seven," blustered Snippet, "and I think I'd be eight by now, if I
hadn't had the measles."

"Where's Taka?" I exclaimed.

In the jostling of the children about the cage, the door, accidentally
or not, had been slipped ajar, and Taka, taking advantage of the heat
of the discussion, had escaped.

The youngsters raised a whoop that might well have scared him to the
Pacific, but not the stir of a bird-wing could be perceived anywhere
about.

Cats!

"Run to the house, Punch, please, and call out everybody to help us
find Taka."

I had selected Punch as the boy of longest legs, forgetting his
partiality for Mary's doughnut jar. He chose the route through the
pantry with the result that when, after a suspiciously long interval,
the rescue party arrived, Mary was dancing with wrath.

"Shure," she panted, "that gossoon would be a good missenger to sind
for Death, for he wouldn't be after gitting him here in a hurry at all
at all."

We hunted and we hunted and we hunted. We hunted high in the trees,
which the boys and Goody, too, climbed with an activity that surprised
the woodpeckers; we hunted low in the grass, interrupting a circle of
squirrels gathered around a toadstool, as around a birthday cake; but
no sign of Taka. We searched hedges and shrubbery, but no Taka. We
chirped and we whistled, though well aware that ev