cake, directly over which I was poised,
made me lose my nerve, I know not, but certain it is that I fell from my
position right on to the table. Both my aunt and the maid fainted at
once quite away, and the timid green-toed button crane of Baraboo was in
such a terrible flutter that in its excitement it snapped the slender
gold chain that held it and flew into the sky, where it was soon lost to
view. "Now I've done it," thought I, and, no doubt, should have run away
had I been able to move, but I was so bruised that I was compelled to
remain among the shattered remains of the table and tea things.
Presently the maid came to, and then my aunt, and nothing could exceed
her rage and grief at losing her valuable pet. They took me home between
them and put me to bed, and the severest punishment they could devise
was to take away from me my lovely collection of eggs. "Never,"
shrieked my wrathful aunt, "shall you have these again until you bring
back to me my beautiful crane."

[Illustration: I ANGLE THE AIR]

'After a while I recovered, but no one dared to speak to me, and I moped
about the house in solitary wretchedness without a single egg to
contemplate.

'At last I could bear it no longer, and one night I left the house
determined never to return again without the crane. I took with me an
old perambulator, in which I had been wheeled about as a child, and
in this I placed six of the delicious kernels of the Peruvian yap bean,
besides a hatchet and other things which I thought might be useful on my
journey. I slept in the forest and, on the following morning I cut down
the straightest tree I could find for my purpose, trimmed it to a fine
long pole, and on the very top of this I fastened a pin, bent to the
form of a fish-hook, which I now baited with one of the yap kernels.

[Illustration: I fell from my position]

[Illustration: I ERECTED MY POLE ON THE SANDS]

'"If anything will attract the bird, this will," thought I, having
fastened the foot of the pole to my perambulator. I now proceeded to
angle the air for the lost crane. Carefully following the direction I
had observed the bird to take when it broke away from its chain, I
travelled for weeks and weeks, without seeing any sign of it. In time,
without even a nibble, the first kernel was dissolved and worn away by
the wind and rain, and, in like manner the same fate overcame the
second, with which I baited my hook; then the third, then the fourth,
and then the