s a
person of importance. Great yellow butterflies, with black markings
upon their wings, floated lazily here and there, and at last settled in
a magnificent cluster upon a moist spot in a mucky place where
something pleased their fancy, and where they fed and fluttered
tremulously. There were myriads of wild bees, and a pleasant droning
filled the air, while from all about came the general soft clamor of
the forest, made up of many sounds.

The boy was satisfied with the prospect. Suddenly he started. There
was a call which was not of peacefulness. He knew the cry. He had
heard it when some bird of prey had seized a smaller one. It was the
call of the sparrow now, and it came from his clump of bushes. His
family was in danger. A hawk, perhaps, but he would have seen such a
foe in its descent. It might be a cat-bird or a weasel?

With a rush, the boy was across the garden, and as he ran he snatched
up what was for a person of such inches an ideal club, a cut of
hickory, perhaps two feet in length, not over an inch in thickness, but
tough and heavy enough for a knight errant of his years. He broke
through the slight herbage about the place where the bushes grew
thickest, and, getting into an open space, had a fair view of the
particular shrub wherein were the bird's-nest and his birdlings. He
stopped short and looked, then ran back a little, then looked again,
and straightway there rose from his throat a scream which, though
greater in volume, was almost in its character like that other wild cry
of the two sparrows who were fluttering pitifully and desperately about
their nest, tempting their own death each instant in defense of their
half-fledged young. He stood with his youthful limbs half paralyzed,
and screamed, for he saw what was most horrible, and what it seemed he
could not check nor hinder, though a cruel tragedy was going on before
his eyes!

Curled easily about the main stem of the bush, close to which, upon a
forked limb, rested the sparrow's nest, its dark coils reaching
downward and its free neck and head waving regularly to and fro, was a
monstrous black-snake, and in its jaws fluttered feebly one of the
youthful sparrows. Evidently the seizure had just been made when the
boy burst in upon the scene. The snake's eyes glittered wickedly, and
it showed no disposition to drop its prey because of the intruder. It
only reared its head and swung slowly from side to side. Lying almost
at full